infomongo.comThe online home of John PhillipsJohn Phillipshttp://infomongo.com/2024-01-18T17:42:11+00:00Impeachment’s Fatal Flawhttp://infomongo.com/posts/impeachment-fatal-flaw/2021-02-15T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/impeachment-vote.png" class="full-width " alt="Votes by State, Second Trump Impeachment" />
<p> </p>
</div>
<p>As I write this, it’s February 13th, 2021. It’s °4 F and snowing lightly here in Denver. The Senate has just found Trump not guilty of Incitement of Insurrection, the single charge put forward in his second impeachment.</p>
<p>The final tally was 57 guilty to 43 not guilty. All 50 Democrats voted for impeachment. They were joined by Republicans Richard Burr from North Carolina, Bill Cassidy from Louisiana, Susan Collins from Maine, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Mitt Romney from Utah, Ben Sasse from Nebraska and Pat Toomey from Pennsylvania. Impeachment requires two-thirds of the members, or 67 votes with all 100 present.</p>
<p>I have feelings about this, that I’ll detail in a future post, but this is the <a href="#so-far-impeachment-is-04">most bipartisan impeachment vote in history</a>.</p>
<h2 id="the-fatal-flaw">The Fatal Flaw</h2>
<p>There are only seven people in history who have voted to impeach a President from their own party: the seven who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment. Mitt Romney was previously the only Senator ever to do so.</p>
<p>The fatal flaw in impeachment is the idea of an impartial jury. A jury made-up of Senators, half from from the President’s own party. There is no impartiality. There isn’t even the pretense.</p>
<h2 id="the-oath-is-a-sham">The Oath is a Sham</h2>
<p>The Senators take an oath before the trial. The Constitution says “When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation.” Since 1798, some variation of “I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God,” has been used.</p>
<p>Before Trump’s first impeachment, numerous Republicans including Senate Majority leader, and Yertle the Turtle impersonator, Mitch McConnell said, “I’m not an impartial juror. This is a political process. There’s not anything judicial about it.”</p>
<p>During the second impeachment, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz met privately with Trump’s defense team, both before and during the trial. Senator Rand Paul could also be seen talking to the defense during the trial.</p>
<p>So, that’s what practically counts as impartial justice. Mmmmmm. Swampy.</p>
<h3 id="whos-on-the-jury">Who’s on the Jury?</h3>
<p>The January 6 Insurrection was driven by the <strong>“big lie”</strong> that Trump won the election. Trump repeated this ad nauseum between the election and the coup attempt. This lie was also spread by numerous GOP Senators.</p>
<p>On January 6th, after the violence, there were objections to counting the electoral college votes of both Arizona and Pennsylvania. <em>(The intial objection to Arizona took place during the attack, but both Senate votes below took place after they reconvened.)</em></p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Objecting to Arizona’s vote were Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO), John Kennedy (R-LA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), and Roger Marshall (R-KS).</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Objecting to Pennsylvania’s vote were Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), Rick Scott (R-FL), Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Altogether, eight Republican Senators voted in objection. Should they have been allowed to sit on the jury? If they were excluded, only 61 votes would have been needed to convict.</p>
<p>If Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Mike Lee (R-UT) were excluded for meeting with the defense team prior to the trial, in violation of their oath, only 90 Senators would remain on the jury, with just 60 needed to convict. Maybe three other GOP Senators would have voted to convict, if this were the case. <em>And maybe rainbows will fly out of my butt.</em></p>
<h2 id="a-fix">A Fix</h2>
<p>Rather than having the whole Senate vote, which reduces impeachment to a party-line vote, the Senators could nominate six Republicans and six Democrats to sit as the jury. If the vote were taken in secret and still required a two-thirds majority, impartial justice might be done.</p>
<p>But this would require a constitutional amendment, which requires a two-thirds supermajority vote in both the House and the Senate. <em>Put some monkeys on the rainbows.</em></p>
<h2 id="so-far-impeachment-is-04">So far, Impeachment is 0–4</h2>
<p>Like the Minnesota Vikings in the Super Bowl, impeachment has a perfectly imperfect record, four attempts, zero convictions, but let’s look at the votes.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>In the first Trump impeachment, Mitt Romney voted guilty on one of the articles of impeachment, abuse of power. <em>The votes were 48 guilty to 52 not guilty on abuse of power, and 47 to 53 on obstruction of congress.</em></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>When Bill Clinton was impeached he also faced two articles of impeachment, perjury (i.e. <em>lying to a federal grand jury</em>) and obstruction of justice. All 45 Democrats in the Senate voted to acquit on both articles. Ten Republicans voted to acquit on perjury, and five on obstruction of justice. <em>The votes were 45 guilty — 55 not guilty on perjury, and 50—50 on obstruction.</em></p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Back in 1868, in the impeachment trial of Democratic President Andrew Johnson, there were eleven articles of impeachment, but only three ever received a vote in the Senate. There were only 54 Senators at the time, and only nine Democrats. (Ten former Confederate states did not yet have representation in the Senate.) All three votes were 35 to 19 in favor of impeachment, just one vote shy of the 36 needed for conviction.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Richard Nixon was never formally impeached. Three articles of impeachment, obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress, were voted out of committee, with seven of seventeen Republicans joining all twenty-one Democratic members. Impeachment in the House was a certainty and conviction in the Senate very likely. But before that happened, Nixon released a transcript that made it clear he was complicit in the cover-up. At this point, even his most vocal defenders in Congress abandoned him and Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.</p>
<h2 id="what-will-get-a-president-impeached">What will get a President Impeached?</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Johnson was impeached for firing the secretary of war, in violation of the newly passed Tenure of Office Act. Most historians now think the act was unconstitutional and Johnson should not have been impeached.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Nixon would have been impeached for his part in the cover-up of the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building. They broke in to photograph documents and install listening devices in telephones. They tried to rig the 1972 election, which Nixon won. The scandal took a long time to break, and he resigned midway thru his second term in 1974.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Clinton was impeached for, essentially, lying about and covering up a sexual affair with Monica Lewinsky. Clinton was initially accused of sexual harassment by Paula Jones. After Ken Starr was appointed Independent Counsel, he went on fishing expedition looking for any wrong-doing. Way more witch-hunt-like than Russia-gate.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Trump’s first impeachment was based on the charge that he solicited foreign interference in the 2020 election. He tried to strong-arm Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, who was the presumptive Democratic nominee. His friend, Rudy, also made some calls.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Trump’s second impeachment arose out of the attack on the Capitol. A crowd of Trump Supporters assembled at the Save America rally and then headed to the Capitol, where they killed a cop, injured 140 others, broke-in and chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and “Where’s Nancy.”</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="election-rigging-and-coup-throwing-will-get-you-impeached">Election-rigging and coup-throwing will get you impeached.</h3>
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<img src="/img/mob-outside-capitol.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Mob with Trump Flag outside the Capitol" />
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<h2 id="can-a-president-be-impeached-after-leaving-office">Can a President be Impeached after Leaving Office?</h2>
<p>About this, the Constitution says:</p>
<blockquote>
<h4 id="in-article-i-section-3-clause-7">In Article I, Section 3, Clause 7</h4>
<p>Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honour, Trust or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Since several Judges have been impeached after resigning, it would seem that removal is not required, and the Senate voted on this twice.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>On January 26, 2021, Rand Paul tried to force a floor vote on the constitutionality of impeaching a President after their term. Paul’s motion was killed on a 55–45 vote, with five Republicans joining all Democrats.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>On February 9, 2021, the Senate voted on the motion “Is Former President Donald John Trump Subject to a Court of Impeachment for Acts Committed While President?” The vote passed 56–44.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Bill Cassidy is the guy who changed his vote, if you are wondering. After hearing evidence in the impeachment trial, he said he was persuaded. This is the precedent they set: a President can be impeached after leaving office. It happened in 2021.</p>
<h2 id="how-likely-is-a-conviction">How likely is a conviction?</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Nixon was messing with the election, and it evolved an actual break-in and illegal wiretapping. He would have been impeached, and probably removed.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Clinton was impeached for lying to Congress. The closest vote was on the article of obstruction of justice, a 50 – 50 vote. No crime was alleged. Hilary didn’t even drop him. Everyone owes Monica Lewinsky an Apology. Sorry, Monica. Bill never apologized and America treated you badly. Jay Leno owes you a car.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Trump 1 involved election tampering, but without any overtly illegal actions. Just one “perfect” call. Gangstery, but dull. Two stars. A conviction would have saved lives, tho.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Trump 2 involved an attempted coup and a cop was killed. A butt-load of crime this time. Cops getting beat with American flags and Trump flags, probably Blue Lives Matter flags, too. Also, Trump looks likely to face prosecution for his attempts to strong-arm Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes.” Another “perfect call.” Drain the swamp.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="sadly-the-odds-of-conviction-depend-entirely-on-the-partisan-make-up-of-the-senate">Sadly, the odds of conviction depend entirely on the partisan make-up of the Senate.</h3>
After the Electionhttp://infomongo.com/posts/after-the-election/2020-11-09T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/dejected-asshole.jpg" class="full-width border" alt="The loser in chief" />
<p> </p>
</div>
<p>A month ago, I wrote about <a href="/posts/trumps-plan-to-steal-the-election/">Trump’s plan to steal the election</a>.</p>
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<p>As a reminder, <a href="/posts/trumps-plan-to-steal-the-election/">the plan</a> was to:</p>
<ol>
<li>Politicize mail-in voting</li>
<li>Suppress the vote</li>
<li>Declare victory on election night</li>
<li>Contest votes tallied after election night</li>
<li>Disqualify mail-in ballots</li>
<li>Take it to the courts</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="politicize-mail-in-voting">Politicize mail-in voting</h2>
<p>Check. From Red Mirage to Blue Wave.</p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of Democrats in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania used mail-in ballots. And these states had laws that wouldn’t let them start processing mail-in ballots until election day. (Laws enacted and upheld by the GOP, by the way.) Trump had early leads in these states, because the first votes counted were by people who voted that day, these votes skewed Republican. But once they started counting mail-in ballots, Biden picked up votes, because the mail-in ballots were overwhelmingly cast by Democrats, often at rates of 80 to 90%. You had in effect two counts, first the Republicans and then the Democrats.</p>
<h2 id="declare-victory-on-election-night">Declare victory on election night</h2>
<p>Check. His tweets were being real-time fact checked by Twitter, and his lies weren’t spreading fast enough. So he held an unhinged press conference at 2:30 am on election night. It was deeply crazy even for Trump. Only he didn’t take any questions, so that’s not a really press conference, is it? If you are into self abuse, you can watch his remarks on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khJzMveELl4">YouTube</a>.</p>
<div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1324108200141082624">
<img src="/img/trump-tweet-claim-pa.png" class="full-width border" alt="Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Nov 4, 2020
We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a BIG Trump lead. Additionally, we hereby claim the State of Michigan if, in fact,....." />
</a>
<p></p>
</div>
<h2 id="contest-votes-tallied-after-election-night">Contest votes tallied after election night</h2>
<p>Check. At least in the states where he had an early lead. But, in Arizona? No those votes must be counted, because the ‘<em>Anointed One</em>’ was behind in Arizona. Here the MAGA were chanting “count every vote.” At people doing exactly that.</p>
<h2 id="disqualify-mail-in-ballots">Disqualify mail-in ballots</h2>
<p>Actually, this seemed kinda half-hearted. A smarter, more dedicated authoritarian would have done a better job. C minus. At least as far as disqualifying ballots before they were cast.</p>
<p>The efforts to wholesale disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of American voters by disqualifying their votes after the election, in what amounts to a slow-moving public coup attempt, continue.</p>
<h2 id="take-it-to-the-courts">Take it to the courts</h2>
<p>Trump has repeatedly called the election “a fraud.” And threatened legal action, including “taking it to the Supreme Court.”</p>
<p>Trump’s lawyers, and those of State GOP organizations, are filing any lawsuit they can think of, legal merit or no. They would need to flip Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, or a similar mix of states, to change the outcome.</p>
<p>But the vote, it ain’t that close. Georgia has the closest margin at 12,291 votes or .25%, followed by Pennsylvania at 46,256 (.68%) and Nevada at 36,186 or (2.71%). Arizona is closer at 14,746 votes or .44%.</p>
<p>Courts are, so far, throwing these cases out like flaming turds, because there is no credible evidence of fraud.</p>
<h2 id="so-thats-where-we-are-now">So that’s where we are now</h2>
<p>Sane Republicans and foreign leaders, both sane and insane, have publicly congratulated Joe Biden and Kamal Harris on their victory. But…</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Attorney General William has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/barr-elections.html">reversed the Justice Department’s longstanding policies, and greenlit investigations into election fraud</a>, despite the lack of any credible evidence beyond the President’s fabrications. The Justice Department official who oversees investigations of voter fraud, Richard Pilger, stepped down in protest.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Senator Lindsey Graham, on <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/11/09/trump-has-not-lost-lindsey-graham-makes-unsubstantiated-claims-that-dead-people-voted-in-election/">Fox News</a> said, “If Republicans — if we don’t challenge and change the U.S. election system, there’ll never be another Republican president elected again.”</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>According to a <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/09/republicans-free-fair-elections-435488">Politico/Morning Consult poll</a> of 1987 registered voters, “70 percent of Republicans don’t think the election was free and fair.”</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>All of this without any credible evidence of voter fraud.</p>
<p>Are Bill Barr, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham and the rest of the complicit willing to engage in a coup?</p>
<p>I dunno, because I live in the “shit hole country” that Trump and the GOP have turned America into. Grab a child in cage from the gift shop on your way out of hell world.</p>
Hypocrisy & Powerhttp://infomongo.com/posts/republican-hypocrisy-and-power/2020-10-12T00:00:00+00:00<p>On February 13, 2016 Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died, <strong>270 days before the 2016 presidential election</strong>. On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy. The Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a confirmation hearings.</p>
<p>In 2016, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton. He appointed to Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy and Gorsuch was confirmed on April 6, 2017.</p>
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<h2 id="mitch-mcconnell-in-2016">Mitch McConnell in 2016:</h2>
<p><strong><em>“Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, we believe that the American people should seize the opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court.”</em></strong></p>
<p><em>—from a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mcconnell-and-grassley-democrats-shouldnt-rob-voters-of-chance-to-replace-scalia/2016/02/18/e5ae9bdc-d68a-11e5-be55-2cc3c1e4b76b_story.html">Washington Post opinion piece</a> by McConnell and Chuck Grassley, then Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>“We think the important principle in the middle of this presidential year is that the American people need to weigh in and decide who’s going to make this decision. Not this lame duck president on the way out the door, but the next president.”</em></strong></p>
<p><em>— McConnell on Fox News Sunday, March 20, 2016</em></p>
<h2 id="lindsey-graham-in-2016">Lindsey Graham in 2016:</h2>
<p><strong><em>“I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination.”</em></strong></p>
<p><em>— Graham made this statement in <a href="https://twitter.com/vanitaguptaCR/status/1307153104941518848">March of 2016</a>, during a meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee.</em></p>
<h2 id="a-new-vacancy-the-court">A New Vacancy the Court</h2>
<p>On September 18, 2020 Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, <strong>47 days before the 2020 presidential election</strong>. Today, October 12, 2020, <strong>22 days</strong> before the election, with Mitch McConnell still the Majority leader and Lindsey Graham now the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, hearings have started to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to replace Ginsburg on the court.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-the-lesson">What is the Lesson?</h2>
<p>If they cared about truth or believed in the “will American people”, they’d stand by their earlier statements. If they had any confidence that Trump would win the election, they would “let the next president decide.” Instead, they rush to pack the court with another lifetime appointment, all while people are voting.</p>
<p>The Republicans don’t care about truth and they don’t trust the American people. They care only about power and their hypocrisy could not be clearer.</p>
How Secure is Mail-in Voting?http://infomongo.com/posts/vote-by-mail-in-colorado/2020-10-08T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1288809157722877952">
<img src="/img/trump-tweet-3.png" class="full-width border" alt="Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Jul 30, 2020
Mail-In Voting is already proving to be a catastrophic disaster. Even testing areas are way off. The Dems talk of foreign influence in voting, but they know that Mail-In Voting is an easy way for foreign countries to enter the race. Even beyond that, there’s no accurate count!" />
</a>
<p class="caption">Some horeshit from the liar in chief.</p>
</div>
<p>In Colorado, we’ve had universal vote-by-mail since 2013. It’s convenient and secure.</p>
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<h3 id="heres-how-it-works">Here’s how it works:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Every registered voter is mailed a ballot in October. <em>(This year, ballots will be mailed out starting October 9.)</em></li>
<li>You can mail it back, put it in a drop box, or take it to your polling place and hand it to an election judge.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you’d rather vote in person, you can do that too. <em>(<a href="https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/VIP.html">find your polling place</a>.)</em></p>
<h3 id="every-colorado-ballot-has-three-er-two-parts">Every Colorado ballot has <del>three</del>, er, two parts:</h3>
<ul>
<li>The actual ballot, with the candidates and issues listed. You vote by filling in little bubbles, like the SAT or any standardized test.</li>
<li><del>A “secrecy” envelope. It’s really a privacy envelope, so election workers can’t see how you voted as they process your ballot.</del><br />
I just received my 2020 ballot for Denver County, and there is no secrecy envelope. I think some counties still have them, and we used to, but not this year.</li>
<li>A return envelope, that you sign and date. This also has a barcode, that provides a key bit of security.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="what-security-measures-are-in-place">What security measures are in place?</h2>
<ul>
<li>Each return envelope has a unique barcode and requires the voter to sign and date it.</li>
<li>Before any ballot is accepted, the information from the barcode, and the voter’s signature are verified.</li>
<li>Drop boxes are monitored by video 24/7, while ballots are being collected.</li>
<li>Ballots are collected from drop boxes daily, by a bipartisan team.</li>
<li>Once the ballots reach a county’s election division, they are kept in rooms with tamper-evident locks and 24/7 video surveillance.</li>
<li>During the count, ballots are counted by high-speed scanners and tabulated on computers that aren’t connected to the internet.</li>
<li>Bipartisan teams are responsible for verifying signatures, and processing ballots.</li>
<li>After the votes are tabulated, an audit is performed on randomly selected ballots.</li>
<li>All video recordings and ballots are kept for 25 months after the election. The entire vote can be recounted if there are concerns about a miscount or tampering.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="duplicate-votes">Duplicate Votes</h2>
<p>If you make a mistake on your ballot, or lose it it, you can go to your polling center and request a new one. <strong>What prevents voters from voting more than once?</strong></p>
<p>Colorado maintains a database registered voters and every ballot has a barcode, printed on the return envelope, that uniquely identifies an individual voter. One of the first steps in processing ballots is to check the voter’s record in the database. When a ballot is accepted, the voter’s record is updated to indicate that their ballot has been received. Both the signature and the voter info must match the voter identified by the barcode. <em>The barcode is the primary key in a voter lookup, that uniquely identifies one person.</em></p>
<p>If a voter mails in a ballot, and then shows up to vote in person, only the first ballot received will be counted. <em>(It’s a crime to vote twice. The clerk will notify the district attorney of any duplicate votes.)</em></p>
<h3 id="isnt-my-vote-private">Isn’t my vote private?</h3>
<p>Only the the outer envelope has a barcode. After the voter’s signature is verified, and the database is checked, the ballot is removed from the outer envelope. Then the ballot, devoid of any identifying information, is processed in a separate room. <strong>The voter database contains a record that a ballot was received from a specific person, but no indication of how they voted.</strong></p>
<h2 id="what-about-foreign-interference">What about foreign interference?</h2>
<p><strong>Couldn’t Russia send in a bunch of fake ballots and flood the system?</strong> If they mail in the ballots, or drop them off, they’d need to reverse engineer the barcodes used to identify voters, and convincingly fake thousands of voter signatures. And each county has a different system, uses different machines and uses a different approach to verifying signatures.</p>
<p>Even if they could bypass this step, maybe with inside assistance, and somehow evade the video surveillance, card keys, tamper-proof locks, and the bipartisan teams overseeing the count, at best <strong>all they could do is invalidate the election</strong>, not pick a candidate.</p>
<p>If someone were to introduce a bunch of ballots for one candidate, the total number of votes counted wouldn’t match the number of ballots accepted. It wouldn’t survive the audit. They’d need to introduce a bunch of fake ballots and hack the voter database, too. And do it in a way that introduces enough ballots to have an effect without being caught by the audit.</p>
<h2 id="dead-man-voting">Dead Man Voting</h2>
<p>There are <a href="https://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/09/22/cbs4-investigation-finds-dead-voters-casting-ballots-in-colorado/">a few cases of ballots cast by dead people</a> in Colorado. In every case, it turns out that a family member was submitting the ballot of a deceased relative. In El Paso County, <a href="https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/politics/colorado-woman-charged-with-voter-fraud-accused-of-forging-dead-parents-signatures">a woman submitted ballots for both her dead parents in several elections</a>. These are voting crimes of opportunity. And they occur in in <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2017/09/15/colorado-2016-improper-voting-study/">very small numbers</a>.</p>
<p>To turn this into an election rigging scheme, you’d need to systematically collect the ballots of dead people who are still registered, and forge their signatures. There is no evidence that anyone has made this work at scale.</p>
<h2 id="what-about-hackers-on-the-internet">What about hackers on the internet?</h2>
<p><strong>None of the machines involved in scanning ballots, or tabulating votes are connected to the internet.</strong> This is what is known as an <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/12/hacker-lexicon-air-gap/">air-gapped network</a>.</p>
<p>Hackers can target the internet connected bits, like the elections website reporting results, or the voter database, but they can’t effect vote counts or totals. A successful effort could sow chaos, but it wouldn’t affect the count. It wouldn’t survive the audit, and at best might trigger a recount of the paper ballots. <strong>And this itself paper trail itself offers more security that most electronic voting systems.</strong></p>
<h3 id="the-post-election-audit">The post election audit</h3>
<p>According to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website, there are two kinds of the audits performed:</p>
<p><em>“After all of the ballots have been tabulated, audit boards made up of county residents are tasked with finding a random sample of specific ballots and reporting the markings on that ballot. If what the audit board reports matches how the voting system tabulated the ballots, the audit concludes. If there are discrepancies, additional ballots are randomly selected to compare until the outcome has been confirmed. If the wrong outcome was reported eventually all of the ballots will be examined and a new outcome will be determined.”</em></p>
<p>And</p>
<p><em>“After all of the ballots have been tabulated, audit boards made up of county residents are tasked with finding a random sample of specific ballots and reporting the markings on that ballot. If a sufficient proportion of the sample conforms with the reported winner, the audit concludes. If not, additional ballots are randomly selected. If the wrong outcome was reported, eventually all of the ballots will be examined and a new outcome will be determined.”</em></p>
<h2 id="signatures--rejected-ballots">Signatures & Rejected Ballots</h2>
<p>The biggest risk to having your ballot counted in Colorado? It might be rejected because your signature doesn’t match the one on file. Colorado Public Radio covers this issue in their story, “<a href="https://www.cpr.org/2020/10/08/colorado-vote-by-mail-ballots-rejected-signatures/">Uncounted Votes In Colorado: Diverse Areas And Younger Voters More Likely To Have Ballots Rejected</a>.”</p>
<p>If your ballot is rejected, you’ll be given the opportunity to “cure” your ballot. Your best protection is to sign up for text or email alerts about the status of your ballot:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://ballottrace.org">https://ballottrace.org</a> - Denver County Residents</li>
<li><a href="https://colorado.ballottrax.net">https://colorado.ballottrax.net</a> - The rest of Colorado</li>
</ul>
<p>This will keep you up-to-date about the status of your ballot. If it is rejected, you’ll be notified by that system and via a letter sent to the address where you are registered.</p>
<p>If it is rejected you have eight days to fix it. The rejection letter has instructions, but this year Colorado is also using a program called <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">TXT2Cure</code>, that allows you to cure your ballot from a smart phone.</p>
<p>To use the system:</p>
<ul>
<li>text “Colorado” to 2VOTE (28638)</li>
<li>click the link that is sent in reply</li>
<li>enter your voter ID number, which is printed on your rejection notice</li>
<li>affirm that you submitted a ballot</li>
<li>sign the affidavit on the phone (using a finger)</li>
<li>take a photo your Colorado driver’s license <a href="https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/vote/acceptableFormsOfID.html">or other acceptable form of identification</a></li>
<li>submit the form</li>
</ul>
<p>The system has been used by some counties in the past, and many users posted selfies instead of a picture of their ID. The instructions now read “NO SELFIES PLEASE.”</p>
<h4 id="notes">Notes</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.coloradopolitics.com/2020-election/heres-a-look-at-the-security-precautions-in-colorados-mail-in-ballot-system/article_f741c53c-dc97-11ea-83c4-3b85f16fee70.html">coloradopolitics.com on physical security and processes</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2020/09/22/updated-got-voting-questions-weve-got-answers/">coloradoindependent.com on duplicate voting</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><a href="https://www.denvergov.org/content/denvergov/en/denver-elections-divison/voter-election-information/ballot-life-cycle.html">denvergov.org explaining ballot production, verification and tabulation</a></p>
</li>
</ul>
Trump’s Plan to Steal the Electionhttp://infomongo.com/posts/trumps-plan-to-steal-the-election/2020-10-01T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/this-fucking-asshole.jpg" class="full-width border" alt="This fucking asshole" />
<p> </p>
</div>
<p>This article in the Atlantic, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/what-if-trump-refuses-concede/616424/">The Election That Could Break America</a>, crystalized some thoughts I’d been having. Trump seemed obsesssed with mail in voting. What was his game? Initially, I thought he was simply trying to undermine our faith in the election, to excuse a defeat. Just write it off as a “rigged system,” and ride into the sunset. But now, I think he has a plan to steal the election.</p>
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<p><a name="jump"></a></p>
<h2 id="step-1-politicize-mail-in-voting">Step 1: Politicize mail-in voting</h2>
<p>Trump has tweeted continuously about vote-by-mail leading to “massive fraud.” There is no evidence supporting this, but he has successfully politicized mail-in voting. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-virus-outbreak-voting-politics-joe-biden-3d8b70cc5c9114ec214a3b9d7981bde3">53% of Biden supporters plan to vote by mail. 57% of Trump supporters say they’ll vote in person</a>.</p>
<div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1309455713882828802">
<img src="/img/trump-tweet.png" class="full-width border" alt="Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump Sep 25, 2020
RINO Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts is unsuccessfully trying to defend Mail In Ballots, when there is fraud being found all over the place. Just look at some of the recent races, or the Trump Ballots in Pennsylvania that were thrown into the garbage. Wrong Charlie!" />
</a>
</div>
<h2 id="step-2-suppress-the-vote">Step 2: Suppress the vote</h2>
<p>O.K. So this isn’t so much a part of Trump’s plan, but a cornerstone of Republican election strategy for decades.</p>
<p>Just today, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation that limits mail ballot drop-off locations to one per county. Harris County, population 4,092,459, includes the Houston area, and typically votes Democratic. It the most populous county in the state, and third most populous in the county, and now it is limited to a single ballot drop-off location. “We must take extra care to strengthen ballot security protocols throughout the state,” the governor said. Horseshit. This is a cynical attempt to suppress Democratic votes. Texas has strict limits on who can request a mail-in ballot, but the Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins indicated that “hundreds of thousands of seniors and voters with disabilities” had done so.</p>
<p>In the first debate, Trump said “bad things happen in Philadelphia” and he urged his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.” Earlier that day, Trump campaign staff were <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/trump-campaign-says-it-plans-to-sue-over-poll-watchers-in-philly-satellite-offices/">blocked by local officials</a> from monitoring newly opened election offices. Philadelphia law requires that poll watchers have a certificate issued by the city, and none have been issued yet, because the city does not consider these offices to be polling places. They allow people to register to vote, and request or return mail-in ballots.</p>
<p>In response, Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said “Democrats have proven their lack of trustworthiness time and again this election cycle.” Neither McDonald nor Trump provided any evidence of Democratic wrong-doing.</p>
<p>It’s the Republicans who have proven untrustworthy. <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/the-gop-just-received-another-tool-for-suppressing-votes/550052/">For 35 years, the Republican National Committee operated under a “consent decree”</a> to limit voter suppression, until it was lifted in 2018. Before the decree, the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands, among other tactics designed to intimidate and disenfranchise minority voters. It’s spelled “ballot security” but it’s pronounced “voter suppression.”</p>
<p>What will happen if Trump calls for the “Proud Boys” or some other armed white-nationalist militia to “monitor the polls” in majority Black precincts? Or barring that, maybe order the Justice Department to deploy unmarked troops, as they did in Portland, to “secure the election.” He is trailing Biden, and the election is only a month away. I wouldn’t rule anything out.</p>
<div>
<img src="/img/boogaloo.jpg" class="full-width border" alt="militia members" />
</div>
<h2 id="step-3-declare-victory-on-election-night">Step 3: Declare victory on election night</h2>
<p>With more Trump supporters voting in person, the President expects to be leading on the night. Many states will have much higher than usual number of mail-ballots to process, and will likely be slow to count them. Some states have laws that prevent them from processing ballots until election day. With more Trump supporters voting in person, and counted in the “normal” way, this increases the odds that Trump will have a lead on election night. Any election day voter suppression will aid this effort.</p>
<h2 id="step-4-contest-votes-tallied-after-election-night">Step 4: Contest votes tallied after election night</h2>
<p>In any election, some votes are counted after election day. The late-reporting precincts, unprocessed absentee votes, and provisional ballots have to be counted. For the last 20 years, votes tallied after election night have tended to favor Democrats.</p>
<p>In 2018, Arizona Republican senate candidate Martha McSally had a narrow lead of 15,403 votes the morning after the election. But the Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, ended up winning by 71,303 votes after the final tally. That same year, both the senate and governor’s races in Florida were close enough to trigger recounts, recounts that the Republicans would win. While the recount was underway, [Trump tweeted][twt]:</p>
<div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1061962869376540672">
<img src="/img/trump-tweet-2.png" class="full-width border" alt="Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump Nov 12, 2018
The Florida Election should be called in favor of Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis in that large numbers of new ballots showed up out of nowhere, and many ballots are missing or forged. An honest vote count is no longer possible-ballots massively infected. Must go with Election Night!" />
</a>
<p></p>
</div>
<p>That’s his strategy for 2020. Declare without evidence that legitimate ballots tallied after election night are “new” and “forged,” and try to exclude them.</p>
<h2 id="step-5-disqualify-mail-in-ballots">Step 5: Disqualify mail-in ballots</h2>
<p>With more Democrats voting by mail, expect Trump to target mail-in ballots for disqualification. In fact, it’s already happening.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/pennsylvania-naked-ballots-supreme-court-philadelphia-20200921.html">The Trump campaign sued Pennsylvania in federal court</a>. One of the issues they raised was about “naked ballots”. According to the instructions, a completed ballot should be put in a “secrecy envelope” that has no identifying information, and then into a larger mailing envelope that the voter signs. Naked ballots are those that don’t have the secrecy envelope.</p>
<p>The state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania ruled that these ballots won’t be counted. Nobody knows how many naked ballots will be thrown out, but it could be as high as 5%. All this in a state Trump carried by about 44,000 votes in 2016, less than 1% of the total vote. In previous elections, naked ballots were counted.</p>
<h2 id="step-6-take-it-to-the-courts">Step 6: Take it to the courts</h2>
<p>Trump won’t concede. Losers concede. Instead of a peaceful transfer of power, expect a court fight. Expect it to center on mail-in ballots. And expect dirty tricks, because that is his best and maybe only hop of winning.</p>
<h2 id="what-are-the-odds">What are the odds…?</h2>
<p>I am just a guy with a blog, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but…</p>
<p>The closest races in the 2020 election are in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. These are the races he needs to affect to win.</p>
<p>All of these allow mail-in voting for any registered voter, except for Texas. In Texas, you have to be 65 years-old or older, sick or disabled, out of the county, or in prison to request a mail-in ballot.</p>
<p>Of those nine states, five have Republican Governors and Secretaries of State. (Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas) The Secretary of State generally runs the elections, and certifies the results. If there are shenanigans that favor Trump, expect it to happen in the Republican controlled states.</p>
<p>In three states, both the Governor and Secretary of State are Democrats. (North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). In Arizona, Governor Doug Ducey is a Republican, but the Secretary of State Katie Hobbs is a Democrat.</p>
<p>Texas has 38 electoral college votes, and Trump is favored to win. (Polls are running from even to Trump +5.) Trump is also favored to win Iowa (6 electoral college votes) and Georgia (16 electoral college votes).</p>
<p>Biden is favored to win Wisconsin (10 electoral college votes) and Pennsylvania (20 electoral college votes). He is slightly favored to win Arizona (11 electoral college votes) and Florida (29 electoral college votes).</p>
<p>North Carolina (15 electoral college votes) and Ohio (18 electoral college votes) are toss-ups.</p>
<p>The state with the highest likelihood of dirty tricks favoring Trump is Florida, because of course it is. It has 29 electoral college votes, and Republicans are in change of the state and certifying the vote. Ohio is the next most likely, I’d say. The race is tight, and the state is under Republican control.</p>
<p>Both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin were extremely tight races in 2016. Last election Trump won Wisconsin by 22,748 votes out of 2,787,820, which is about 0.8%. And he carried Pennsylvania by an even slimmer margin of 44,292 votes out of more than 6,000,000 cast, a difference of 0.72%. Biden is up by 6 points in polls of both states. But then, Hillary Clinton was ahead by a similar margin in Wisconsin in 2016, and by 4 points in Pennsylvania. So keep an eye on these states as well.</p>
<h2 id="what-to-do-about-this">What to do about this?</h2>
<h4 class="lite">Update: Oct 8, 2020</h4>
<p>This morning Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah tweeted:</p>
<div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/SenMikeLee/status/1314089207875371008">
<img src="/img/lee-tweet.png" class="full-width border" alt="Mike Lee @SenMikeLee Oct 8, 2020
Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that." />
</a>
<p></p>
</div>
<p>This clarified my thinking about how to respond.</p>
<h3>“Do you hear the thunder? <br />
It's the sound of strength in numbers.”</h3>
<p>If the Republicans think they can steal this election and our civil liberties without a fight, they are in for a surprise. I will exercise my second amendment right to defend “the security of a free State.”</p>
<p>I don’t think I’ll be alone.</p>
We could have been Canada…http://infomongo.com/posts/we-could-have-been-canada/2020-09-30T00:00:00+00:00<p><img src="/img/deaths-per-million.png" class="full-width border" alt="Deaths per Million for U.S., Canada, Mexico and Europe" /></p>
<p>Back in March, I sent an email <a href="/posts/I-dont-want-the-cure-to-be-worse-than-the-problem-itself/">speculating about how many Americans might die from the coronavirus</a>. I estimated a range from 290,000 to 1,160,000, based on the assumption that 29 million Americans would get it. (For the 2016-17 flu season, the CDC estimated that 29 million got the flu, resulting in 38,000 deaths.)</p>
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<p><strong>At the end of September, a little more than 6 months into the pandemic, how are we doing?</strong></p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_totalcases">CDC</a></p>
<ul>
<li>There have been <strong>7,129,313 cases</strong> in the U.S.</li>
<li>And <strong>204,598 deaths</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington projects that there will be 371,509 deaths in the U.S. by the end of the year.</p>
<p><strong>How do we compare with other industrialized countries?</strong></p>
<p>We have had <strong>622.3 deaths per million people</strong>. In Europe, they have had <strong>333.2 deaths per million</strong>. There have been 21,722.6 cases per million people in the U.S., compared with 6,283.4 cases per million in Europe.</p>
<p>Had we done as good job as Europe at controlling the spread, we’d have about 2,062,199 cases and 59,181 deaths.</p>
<p>In fact, only three countries have had more deaths per capita than the U.S.: Peru, Spain and Brazil.</p>
<p>And that’s pretty much the story of the U.S. response to COVID: <strong>we could have been Canada</strong> (247.2 deaths per million) <strong>but instead we’re Mexico</strong> (598.5 deaths per million).</p>
Good Data, Bad Designhttp://infomongo.com/posts/good-data-bad-design/2020-08-26T00:00:00+00:00<p>The Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) has been publishing data about the <a href="https://covid19.colorado.gov/data">COVID pandemic since early March</a>. They recently updated the site, and are publishing a lot more data. However, the design of the site hinders discovery of this data and makes it hard to use / understand. This applies to both the visual design (how it looks) and how it works.</p>
<h2 id="visual-design-problems">Visual Design Problems</h2>
<p>Here is the “meat” of the current <a href="https://covid19.colorado.gov/data">display</a>. (I’m omitting the navigation portions, which has problems covered below.)</p>
<div>
<img src="/img/CDPHE/current.png" class="full-width border" alt="Current Data Display" />
<p class="caption">current display</p>
</div>
<p>The main flaws in the visual design are:</p>
<ul>
<li>too many colors</li>
<li>borders around everything</li>
</ul>
<p>The overuse of color makes the diagram hard to look at. It looks unprofessional. Putting everything in a box with a border makes it harder to scan and compare values. (<a href="https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/">Edward Tufte</a> calls these “content jails.” Each bit of data is visually locked up and isolated from the others.)</p>
<h2 id="improved-visual-design">Improved Visual Design</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/CDPHE/improved.png" class="full-width border" alt="Improved Data Display" />
<p class="caption">improved display</p>
</div>
<p>I kept the color coding of each section, but limited it to the separator between sections, and the icons. I used a darker more saturated version of the colors, that I pulled from the logo at the top of the page. The icons are from <a href="https://fontawesome.com">Font Awesome</a>, an excellent source of free icons. In the original, the icons use a slightly different color than the rows, which is distracting and ugly.</p>
<p>I eliminated the boxes around everything, and instead used white space to separate values. This is almost always a better solution.</p>
<p>I also improved the typography. The numbers are larger and bold, to make them stand out. The labels are smaller. This is the biggest problem with the typography of the original, the values and labels are styled the same.</p>
<p>In the original, the sections don’t have text titles, instead each has an icon on the right. Text tiles work much better.</p>
<p>I dropped the light gray background. It didn’t quite match the gray in the header of the pages, and muddied the colors used. This also improves the accessibility of the display, by improving the contrast between foreground and background.</p>
<h2 id="awkward-navigation">Awkward Navigation</h2>
<p>Here is a screen shot of the page containing this infographic.</p>
<div>
<img src="/img/CDPHE/current-page.png" class="full-width border" alt="Current Page" />
<p class="caption">current page</p>
</div>
<p>The Colorado logo is repeated three times at the top of the page, and the key stats are again all in boxes, with identical type treatment given to the numbers and labels. Below this is a line of grayed out graphics that serves as the navigation to see the other data presented. It seems like we are on the Case Summary Page, but we aren’t. We are on the “home” page of this infographic, reachable by clicking the house icon just below the grayed out images.</p>
<p>This navigation is non-standard. It’s not obvious that the grayed out images are clickable. They take up a lot of space, and are visually loud. And the default state isn’t in the main nav, instead it uses a button below.</p>
<p>The most serious problem with the navigation is slowness. It takes several seconds to load each new state. Anything longer than about half a second feels slow.</p>
<h2 id="improved-navigation">Improved Navigation</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/CDPHE/improved-page.png" class="full-width border" alt="Improved Page" />
<p class="caption">improved page</p>
</div>
<p>This version uses a ’segmented control’ for the navigation. With this control, each state has a button, and the active state is highlighted. It’s much more space efficient. I also changed the language used for some of the labels. I changed ‘Case Summary’ to ‘Cases’ because summary could be confused with ‘Overview’, the name I gave to the initial state. I used ‘Hospitals’ rather than ‘Hospital Data’ to make the labels more similar, most of them are plural nouns. And I grouped all these plural nouns together.</p>
<p>Also, the controls used on may of the graphs are also confusing, as shown below.</p>
<h2 id="make-the-buttons-bigger">Make the Buttons Bigger</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/CDPHE/current-cases.png" class="full-width border" alt="Awkward Controls" />
<p class="caption">current controls</p>
</div>
<p>The buttons above this graph control the data shown on it. There is a hierarchy, the option selected in the top row affects the options offered in the second row.</p>
<p>However, using size to show this relationship is odd. More problematic is the use of different colors, and different active colors for each row. It’s not immediately obvious what is active. The viewer has to figure out what the active color is for each row, and every graph uses a different set of colors, which is madness.</p>
<h2 id="improved-buttons">Improved Buttons</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/CDPHE/improved-cases.png" class="full-width border" alt="Improved Controls" />
<p class="caption">improved controls</p>
</div>
<p>Instead of using size, we can rely of position alone, and use a consistent color for the selected state across all the controls.</p>
<p>All of my changes reduce clutter on the page, make it more obvious what state is active, and require less mental effort to use.</p>
<p>If anyone from CDPHE is reading this, please feel free to use my improvements, or contact me for more design help <a href="mailto:john@infomongo.com">john@infomongo.com</a>.</p>
It’s like they don’t really want to distribute the moneyhttp://infomongo.com/posts/where-is-my-money/2020-05-08T00:00:00+00:00<p>Faced with mounting unemployment from the coronavirus, the U.S. government rolled out a relief plan. The plan was to give qualifying citizens, those below certain income thresholds, $1,200, plus $500 per dependent. So far so good, altho I’m not sure how many months of lost income the government thinks $1,200 will cover.</p>
<h2 id="how-will-people-get-the-money">How will people get the money?</h2>
<p>The initial message was that if you had paid taxes in 2018 or 2019, and the IRS had your bank account info, you’d get a direct deposit. Otherwise they’d mail you a check. After hearing from friends that got their money, I start checking my bank account. Nope. Nada. Nothing. No check in the mail.</p>
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<p><a name="jump"></a></p>
<p>An email from the Washington Post, their daily coronavirus update I think, explains that you will only get a direct deposit if you got refund. If you owed taxes, you’ll get a check. I paid my year’s taxes via direct deposit, by providing my bank account and routing numbers. This is the exact information The IRS needs to make a direct deposit, but they can’t. Because government, I guess.</p>
<p>To get my payment quickly, electronically, I would need to visit <a href="https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment">a site the IRS has set up</a>. Clicking Get My Payment eventually displays this form, after a stern warning that this is for official business only.</p>
<div>
<img src="/img/get-my-payment.png" class="full-width" alt="Get My Payment" />
<p class="caption">The Get My Payment form</p>
</div>
<p>I enter my social, my date of birth, my address, and get an error. <strong>The information entered does not match our records</strong>. I check my info, and try again. Same error. One more attempt and now <strong>it tells me I’m locked out of the system for 24 hours.</strong> Three strikes and you’re out. Loser.</p>
<p>Now I am in what I call a “usability rage.” It happens to those of us in the industry. As a usability professional, I know it didn’t have to work like this. That competent professionals could have been employed to make a usable system. But they were not.</p>
<p>After some swearing and venting in Slack, I read thru <a href="https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment-frequently-asked-questions">the FAQ</a>. <strong>There are 28 questions in the FAQ, to explain how to use a system that than about 10 fields, total.</strong> Always a good sign. I eventually find this:</p>
<p>“You may want to check your most recent tax return or consider if there is a different way to enter your street address (for example, 123 N Main St vs 123 North Main St). You may also verify how your address is formatted with the US Postal Service (<a href="https://tools.usps.com/zip-code-lookup.htm?byaddress">USPS</a>) by entering your address in the USPS ZIP Lookup tool, and then enter your address into Get My Payment exactly as it appears on file with USPS.”</p>
<p>Oh. That’s likely my problem. My address is technically: “3844 N CLAY ST”. Even though it’s usually written “3844 CLAY STREET” or “3844 Clay St.”</p>
<p>How would competent professionals handle this? Mentioning this type of address confusion in the error message would seem like the bare minimum. Skilled professionals would have integrated with the <a href="https://www.usps.com/business/web-tools-apis/address-information-api.htm#_Toc34052586">USPS’s address verification API</a>.</p>
<p>That’s right, the USPS provides a way to fix these kinds of problems programmatically. No way the IRS team could have known this, tho. Not unless they have access to the google.</p>
<h2 id="day-2">Day 2</h2>
<p>OK. I make a note to come back tomorrow and try again. On my second visit, using the “correct address” I am able to get to the second page of the site.</p>
<p>Here they ask me to verify my Adjusted Gross Income and maybe one other item from my tax return. And I can enter my bank account and routing information.</p>
<p>The crack IRS development team has provided two fields for each, one to enter the account number and another to confirm it. Same for the routing information. <strong>And they have disabled copy and paste from working in these fields</strong>. Because security or best practices or some other horseshit.</p>
<p><strong>There are no credible usability arguments for doing this</strong>. None. This is a user-hostile anti-pattern. Copy and paste can cause problems with masked fields. A user may accidentally include one or more spaces at the end of their password, for example. But when entering data in unmasked fields, where you can see what you are typing, there is no reason to disable this. And even with masked fields, there are better ways to handle this.</p>
<p>Which is more likely, that I will accidentally make an error typing my 10 digit account number or that I will include a space on the end? It’s trivial to remove extra spaces from the ends of strings of text. Literally every programming language provides a function to do this.</p>
<p>I have my account number and routing number in a text file. I just copied it from my bank’s website. But sure, I’d rather painfully enter them, checking for errors, instead of pasting the vaue I’m 100% certain is correct. Thanks for protecting me from myself, assholes.</p>
<p>After submitting my bank account info, I just have to wait another week. Then I can log back in and see when I can expect my payment.</p>
<h2 id="yeah-fine-no-rush-its-not-an-emergency">Yeah fine no rush. It’s not an emergency.</h2>
<p>Luckily, it isn’t an emergency for me. But for many people it is. They may not be able to make rent, or put food on the table. So good work. Instead of putting his name on the check, Trump should have put his name on this website. Because it is a total fiasco, incompetent and hostile.</p>
Unable to sync my iPhone in Catalinahttp://infomongo.com/posts/iphone-wont-sync-in-catalina/2020-04-08T00:00:00+00:00<p>After updating my Mac to macOS 10.15.2 (Catalina) and my iPhone iOS 13.4, I could no longer get my iPhone to sync. Every time, I tried I would get this error:</p>
<h3 id="the-iphone-mjölnir-could-not-be-synced-because-the-connection-to-the-iphone-was-lost">The iPhone “Mjölnir” could not be synced because the connection to the iPhone was lost.</h3>
<p><em>(My iPhone isn’t actually named after Thor’s hammer, but maybe I should change that…)</em></p>
<p>I wasn’t sure the update had caused it, but I first noticed the problem after updating. Googling gave all kinds bad advice. “Make sure you are using an Apple brand cable.” “Trying zapping the PRAM.” That kind of useless horseshit.</p>
<p>Then I had thought. I had added some new music to the Music app, and it had messed up my Music Library. About 50 albums no longer had an <strong>artist</strong> or an <strong>album title</strong>. I fixed those, but then digging in deeper I realized I hadn’t fixed all of them. I still had a bunch of songs by “Unknown” in an “Unknown Album.”</p>
<p>What if the sync was failing, because of this damage? I was syncing was music to the iPhone, after all.</p>
<p>I reverted to a backup of my music, at <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Music > iTunes > iTunes Media</code>. I had to delete everything in the Music app, and then add it all back again. This fixed all the broken stuff in my library. (With the Music app, the song files are stored at <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Music > Music > Media.</code>)</p>
<p>This was a pain in the ass, and took far too long. I had to clear up a bunch of hard drive space, because the media files get copied to the Media folder. And on the first attempt, the import only got half of the songs because the Mac thought I was out of disk space, even though there was plenty. I also had to export and then re-import a bunch of playlists.</p>
<h2 id="the-fix">The Fix</h2>
<p>After deleting and recreating my Music Library, my iPhone synced without a problem.</p>
<p>If you are getting this error, maybe this fix will work for you, too. You might have to look at what else you are syncing, like photos, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.</p>
<h2 id="the-ugliness">The Ugliness</h2>
<p>There are so many bugs and UI failures here:</p>
<ol>
<li>Adding music to the library caused data loss. <strong>This should never happen</strong>. And fixing this manually would have been time consuming and frustrating. “Who wrote ‘If I Were Going’ and what album was it on?”</li>
<li>The error message was misleading / not helpful. Maybe the connection was getting lost, but why?</li>
<li>iTunes gave feedback about what it was syncing, music, photos, etc. In Catalina, the Finder doesn’t provide this feedback. If I had known it was consistently failing when syncing music, that would have been a clue where to look.</li>
<li>The Mac apparently has no idea how much free disk space it actually has. I had to restart to get it to recognize the free space.</li>
<li>The bug causing all this? Likely some bit of the sync code was blowing up, because it didn’t expect to get a ‘null’ back. Which is the kind of a rookie error.</li>
</ol>
<h3 id="apple-used-to-be-good-at-software-and-user-experience">Apple used to be good at software and user experience.</h3>
<p>They used to make high quality software. Now I wonder if they even have a QA department?</p>
“I don’t want the cure to be worse than the problem itself”http://infomongo.com/posts/I-dont-want-the-cure-to-be-worse-than-the-problem-itself/2020-03-25T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<p><img src="/img/new-US-cases.png" class="full-width" alt="New U.S. Coronavirus Cases" />
<a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/">source</a> as of March 24, 2020</p>
</div>
<p>According too the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-vice-president-pence-members-coronavirus-task-force-fox-news-virtual-town-hall/">White House</a>, at a Fox News Virtual Town Hall on March 24, the President said:</p>
<div class="lite">
<p><strong>“I don’t want the cure to be worse than the problem itself — the problem being, obviously, the problem. And you know, you can destroy a country this way, by closing it down, where it literally goes from being the most prosperous — I mean, we had the best economy in the history of our country three weeks ago. And then all of a sudden, we’re supposed to shut it down.”</strong> [</p>
</div>
<!--more-->
<p><a name="jump"></a></p>
<p>I find this troubling. He is saying: Either we <strong>save lives</strong>, or we <strong>save the economy</strong>.</p>
<p>But, this is America.</p>
<p>Why can’t we do both. <strong>We must to do both,</strong> right?</p>
<p>Later in the town hall, he said:</p>
<div class="lite">
<p><strong>“Well, you have to make the decision. Look, we lose thousands — I brought some numbers here. We lose thousands and thousands of people a year to the flu. We don’t turn the country off — I mean, every year.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Now, when I heard the number — you know we average 37,000 people a year. Can you believe that? And actually, this year we’re having a bad flu season. But we lose thousands of people a year to the flu. We never turn the country off.”</strong></p>
</div>
<h2 id="this-is-immoral-and-also-incorrect">This is immoral, and also incorrect</h2>
<p>The economy may recover. <strong>The dead will not</strong>. Those are our values, right? Life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness. In that order. Got to be alive to exercise any liberty.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p><strong>This virus is more contagious than the flu</strong>. We have no immunity to it. And it looks like initially people are infected, but symptom free. So they spread it without knowing.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>This virus is much deadlier than the flu</strong>. For the 2016-17 flu season, the CDC estimates <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html">there were 29,000,000 cases and 38,000 deaths</a>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>That’s a death rate of 0.13%, for the flu</strong>.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The WHO reports <a href="https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd">375,498 cases and 16,362 deaths worldwide</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>That’s a death rate of 4.36% for this virus,</strong> whatever we call it.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If the same 29,000,000 Americans catch this virus, here’s how many people could die:</p>
<ul>
<li>a 4% death rate = <strong>1,160,000</strong> dead</li>
<li>2% = <strong>580,000</strong></li>
<li>1% = <strong>290,000</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>More than 29,000,000 Americans may catch it, because we have no immunity or vaccine. So those numbers may be low.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-the-actual-death-rate">What is the actual death rate?</h2>
<p>It varies a lot from country to country:</p>
<p><strong>South Korea</strong> has reported 9,137 cases and 126 deaths, <strong>a death rate of 1.38%.</strong> They achieved this by <strong>testing everyone</strong>, and isolating the infected.</p>
<p><strong>Italy</strong> has 74,386 cases, 7,503 deaths and <strong>a death rate of 10.09%</strong>. They did not control the spread, and hospitals got overwhelmed.</p>
<p><strong>Germany is unusual</strong>. They have 37,323 cases and only 206 deaths, for a death rate of only <strong>0.55%</strong>. So it’s <strong>five times deadlier than the flu.</strong></p>
<p><strong>In the U.S</strong>, so far we have 60,653 cases and 819 deaths, a <strong>death rate of 1.35%</strong>. And it’s early days, it’s still spreading.</p>
<h2 id="what-should-we-do">What should we do?</h2>
<p>We don’t have a treatment, yet. We don’t have a vaccination. All we have is containment, using the blunt instrument of “social distancing”.</p>
<h3 id="please-stay-home--encourage-others-to-stay-home-too">Please stay home & encourage others to stay home, too.</h3>
<p>Don’t listen to the President and Fox News on this one.</p>
<p><strong>This one is life and death</strong>.</p>
<h3 id="update">Update</h3>
<p>A previous version asked you to:</p>
<p><a href="https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=CO">Please call your Senators</a>, and demand they protect us. Demand that the government take this seriously, and focus on saving lives.</p>
<p>But, according to <strong>The Washington Post’s</strong> Coronavirus Updates newsletter, we don’t have to worry, becuase the Governors have the real power.</p>
<div class="lite">
<p><strong>“A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/25/coronavirus-glenn-beck-trump/?utm_campaign=wp_to_your_health&utm_content=2020_03_25&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh&wpmk=1">chorus of conservatives</a> is lining up behind Trump’s desire to “re-open the country” by mid-April, despite warnings from health experts that ending social distancing too soon would lead to an overwhelming spike in new cases and deaths. But Trump ultimately won’t be the one who decides that. The 10th Amendment gives <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/25/why-trump-wont-have-final-say-whether-people-go-back-work/?utm_campaign=wp_to_your_health&utm_content=2020_03_25&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh&wpmk=1">governors clear power to protect the health and safety of their residents,</a> no matter the consequence to the economy, and some governors are already expressing skepticism that it would be possible to go back to normal by Easter.”</strong></p>
</div>
<p>But you could still call your Senators, and ask why we are aren’t using the <strong>Defense Production Act</strong> to force companies to produce need supplies, like masks and ventilators. We should have a war time mentality on this.</p>
The New Punk Rock?http://infomongo.com/posts/the-new-punk-rock/2019-07-22T00:00:00+00:00<p>Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, I have been waiting for some youth culture rebellion, some new kind of punk rock, to rise up. I mean, all the punks were pissed at Ronald Reagan in the 80’s, right? Reagan is really weak tea compared to Trump.</p>
<p>I kinda figured it would be a form of hip hop, this time. <em>(And truth be told, this is likely <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY">the new punk rock</a>.)</em></p>
<p>But for my money, the band bringing the new punk rock are the <a href="https://www.idlesband.com">Idles</a>.</p>
<h2 id="idles---tiny-desk-concert">Idles - Tiny Desk Concert</h2>
<div class="video-wrapper">
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/wMehItNQKAA" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>
<!--more-->
<p><a name="jump"></a></p>
<p>These three songs, “Never Fight A Man With A Perm”, “Mercedes Marxist” and “I’m Scum” are a good intro to the band. I prefer this live version of “Never Fight A Man With A Perm”, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEe4i2osF5A">the official video if a ton o’ fun</a>.</p>
<p>The songs “Never Fight A Man With A Perm”and “I’m Scum” are off their latest full length album <a href="https://idlesband.bandcamp.com/album/joy-as-an-act-of-resistance">Joy as an Act of Resistance</a>. Their latest release is the EP, Mercedes Marxist</p>
<h2 id="the-idles---danny-nedelko">The Idles - Danny Nedelko</h2>
<div class="video-wrapper">
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QkF_G-RF66M" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>
<p>This song is also from Joy as an Act of Resistance, and it got a fair amount of press, because while they look and sound a bit like hooligans, the lyrics are decidedly progressive:</p>
<p>My blood brother is an immigrant<br />
A beautiful immigrant<br />
My blood brother’s Freddie Mercury<br />
A Nigerian mother of three</p>
Is This News?http://infomongo.com/posts/news-now/2019-07-18T00:00:00+00:00<p>I read the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com">Guardian</a> pretty regularly, mostly for their covergae of the Premier League. They’re pretty lefty, but truth-be-told, so am I, so I also look at their Brexit coverage. <em>(It’s much deeper than any of the U.S. papers.)</em></p>
<div class="">
<img src="/img/news-now/guardian-live.jpg" alt="A live news story on the Guardian, July 7, 2019" class="full-width border" />
<p class="caption"> A live news story on the Guardian], July 7, 2019 </p>
</div>
<!--more-->
<p><a name="jump"></a></p>
<p>At some point, I noticed that they had a “live” news story on their front page, every day. They provide minute-by-minute live coverage of sporting events, and this is sort of the same thing, but applied to the news. I think it’s almost always politics. <em>(Certainly seems to be in the US edition.)</em></p>
<p>This seemed kinda insane to me, but also I get it. This is basically twitter these days, a live stream of “news.” Most news sites main twitter feeds do something similar, but they are typically posting links to stories on their sites. These Guardian live news stories don’t usually contain links to other stories, but each post is kind of micro-story. Some of these turn into “regular stories,” and they get linked to.</p>
<p>I wanted to see if any other news sites were doing something similar, but it seems like it’s just the Guadian.</p>
<h2 id="different-coverage">Different Coverage</h2>
<p>I did notice some stark differences in how sites were covering the top news story that day, Trump’s announcement about the citizenship question on the 2020 census.</p>
<div class="">
<img src="/img/news-now/newyorktimes.jpg" alt="The New York Times home page on July 7, 2019 " class="full-width border" />
<p class="caption">The New York Times home page on July 7, 2019 </p>
<img src="/img/news-now/washington-post.jpg" alt="The Washington Post home page on July 7, 2019" class="full-width border" />
<p class="caption">The Washington Post home page on July 7, 2019 </p>
</div>
<p>The New York Times labels It a <strong>“retreat”</strong>. The Post describes Trump as <strong>“giving up.”</strong> Not really surprising, retreat has a bit of an editorial slant, but “giving up” seems relatively neutral.</p>
<div class="">
<img src="/img/news-now/wall-street-journal.jpg" alt="The Wall Street Journal home page on July 7, 2019 " class="full-width border" />
<p class="caption">The Wall Street Journal home page on July 7, 2019 </p>
<img src="/img/news-now/fox-news.jpg" alt="The Fox News home page on July 7, 2019" class="full-width border" />
<p class="caption">The Fox News home page on July 7, 2019 </p>
</div>
<p>Again, nothing surprising here: The Wall Street Journal uses <strong>“drop”</strong> to describe the change. And Fox News, straight up GOP Pravda, applies some serious spin. It’s not that he’s dropping the old plan, he has a new better plan. Yeah, that’s the ticket.</p>
<div class="">
<img src="/img/news-now/msnbc.jpg" alt="The MSNBC home page on July 7, 2019 " class="full-width border" />
<p class="caption">The MSNBC home page on July 7, 2019 </p>
</div>
<p>I was expecting something a bit more celebratory from MSNBC.</p>
UX Design Blogshttp://infomongo.com/posts/design-blogs/2019-02-21T00:00:00+00:00<p>I’m taking a break from social media. I hadn’t looked at facebook in 6 to 9 months, so I disabled my account. I deleted the twitter app on my phone, and we’ll see if I can make this stick. Really trying to avoid any apps that I open just to kill time. More on this in a future post.</p>
<p>One of the only useful things twitter was offering me was a <strong>UX and Web Design</strong> section in the search tab. This was a good way stay abreast of industry developments. But, it’s kinda like swimming thru a cesspool to get an oreo cookie.</p>
<h2 id="sites--blogs-i-like">Sites & Blogs I Like…</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/ux-design/">Smashing Magazine - UX Design</a></li>
<li><a href="https://uxmovement.com">UX Movement</a></li>
<li><a href="https://articles.uie.com">UIE Articles</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.uxbooth.com">UX Booth</a></li>
<li><a href="http://boxesandarrows.com">Boxes and Arrows</a></li>
<li><a href="https://usabilitygeek.com">Usability Geek</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/">Nielsen Norman Group - Articles</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.lukew.com/ff/">Luke W</a></li>
<li><a href="https://ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/">Ethan Marcotte</a></li>
<li><a href="https://muledesign.com/blog">Mule Design Blog</a></li>
<li><a href="https://alistapart.com/topic/user-experience">A List Apart - UX</a></li>
<li><a href="https://uxmyths.com">UX Myths</a></li>
<li><a href="https://designmodo.com/design/ux-design/">Design Modo - UX Design</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="design-twitter">Design Twitter</h2>
<p>I look at these in a browser without being logged in to twitter.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/mulegirl">Erika Hall</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/jmspool">Jared Spool</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/lukew">Luke Wroblewski</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/karenmcgrane">Karen McGrane</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/janepyle">Jane Pyle</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/chrismessina/">Chris Messina</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/beep">Ethan Marcotte</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/elliotjaystocks">Elliot Jay Stocks</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/TrentWalton">Trent Walton</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/davatron5000">Dave Rupert</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/rjs/">Ryan Singer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/DannPetty">Dann Petty</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/nickf">Nick Finck</a></li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/wilsonminer">Wilson Miner</a></li>
</ul>
Keep Sunnyside Sketchyhttp://infomongo.com/posts/keep-sunnyside-sketchy/2018-07-17T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/keep-sunnyside-sketchy.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Keep Sunnyside Sketchy" />
</div>
<p>I like my neighborhood. We have been living in Sunnyside since 2001. But it used to be a lot more diverse.</p>
<p>So in the spirit of “Keep Austin Wierd” and “Keep Portland Weird” I created this yard sign. I’ve had some interest, so here’s <a href="/img/Keep-Sunnyside-Sketchy.pdf">a link to the PDF</a>.</p>
<p>It’s not the most print-friendly PDF ever created. It’s RGB and it’s pretty small, about by 6 inches, but it’s a vector image, and will scale up to the size you need. If you want to use it, feel free.</p>
Tendril API Documentationhttp://infomongo.com/posts/tendril-api-documentation/2018-07-12T00:00:00+00:00<p>I worked with <a href="https://www.tendrilinc.com">Tendril</a> to launch a site documenting a collection of their APIs at <a href="https://tendril.readme.io">tendril.readme.io</a>.</p>
<p>I wrote the documentation and helped them choose <a href="https://readme.io">readme.io</a> to host the site.</p>
<p>We went with readme.io because it offers a good mix of features (documentation, API explorer, and discussion groups) and it’s integrated with Swagger. <em>Swagger integration was important to the team</em>. The <a href="https://tendril.readme.io/v1.0/reference">API Explorer</a> section is created automatically when you import a <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">swagger.yaml</code> file that describes the API.</p>
<p>I have been doing more technical writing lately and really enjoying it. Reach out if you need some help.</p>
The Second Amendmenthttp://infomongo.com/posts/the-second-amendment/2018-06-05T00:00:00+00:00<p>The Second Amendment is one hell of a sentence. It reads, in its entirety:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are full of this kind of writing. The rules for comma usage were less precise at the time. A comma meant, “pause here, please.” The capitalization is baroque, too. The nouns “Militia,” “State” and “Arms” are capitalized, but “people” is lowercase.</p>
<p>Nowadays, this wouldn’t make it past a copyeditor. The use of commas is just odd. More problematically, the connection between the clauses is unclear. What is the relationship between the well-regulated militia, the free state, and the right of the people to bear arms?</p>
<p>One reading is that the two clauses are unrelated. That there are two unrelated thoughts, as if it were written:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.<br />
The right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is how the amendment is currently understood. The first bit about the militia and the free state is taken as preamble, a kind of clearing of the throat. The real meat is in the second bit, about the right of the people to keep and bear arms. This is the position that Justice Scalia took, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf">writing in the majority opinion</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The Amendment’s prefatory clause announces a purpose, but does not limit or expand the scope of the second part, the operative clause.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The “prefatory clause” refers to the bit about the militia and the free state. The operative clause refers to “the right of people to keep and bear arms.”</p>
<p>If we modernize the grammar of the sentence, removing the unneeded commas and capitalization, we get:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This construction is called an “ablative absolute” <a href="http://verbmall.blogspot.com/2017/10/grammatical-analysis-second-amendment.html">by grammarians</a>. The clause before the comma can’t stand alone as a complete sentence. It modifies meaning of the main clause, which could stand alone. But how does it modify it?</p>
<p>According the majority opinion, the initial clause can be ignored. It “does not limit or expand the scope of […] the operative clause.”</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf">the dissenting opinion</a>, Justice Stevens agues the initial clause does limit the scope of the right. In this view, the amendment protects the rights to keep and bear arms only for a limited set of military purposes. The dissenting opinion reads:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The Second Amendment was adopted to protect the right of the people of each of the several States to maintain a well-regulated militia. It was a response to concerns raised during the ratification of the Constitution that the power of Congress to disarm the state militias and create a national standing army posed an intolerable threat to the sovereignty of the several States.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the this view, the people have the right to keep and bears arms, only as part of well-regulated militia in defense of a free state.</p>
<p>This seems like a more natural reading of the amendment. In this view, all of the words matter, not just those in the second half of the sentence. It’s a shame that the founding fathers didn’t have a better copy editor. They might have written:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The right of the people to keep and bear arms, as part of a well-regulated militia for the protection of a free state, shall not be infringed.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this construction, the scope of the right is made more clear.</p>
<p>If the founders had meant to guarantee a right to bear arms without restriction they could simply have written:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And, sadly, this is where we live now.</p>
Why Are There So Many Mass Shootings In The U.S.?http://infomongo.com/posts/media-and-mass-shootings/2018-05-25T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/child-gun.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Boy with Gun" />
</div>
<p>In the United States, there are 88.8 guns for every 100 people. That’s about 289 million guns in the country. A study by Adam Lankford, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at The University of Alabama, shows a link between gun ownership rates and mass shootings.</p>
<p>The study looked at gun ownership rates in 171 countries, and examined mass shootings from 1966 to 2012. Lankford found that countries with more guns have more mass shootings. The United States has the highest rates of gun ownership in the world and the most mass shooters. During the period of the study, the U.S. had 90 mass shootings, or 31% of the worldwide total. No other country came close. The next highest was the Philippines, with 18 mass shootings, followed by Russia with 15, Yemen with 11, and France with 10.</p>
<p>The study is summarized in this <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/world/americas/mass-shootings-us-international.html">New York Times article</a>. <em>If you want to the read the study, you can request a copy <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292305105_Public_Mass_Shooters_and_Firearms_A_Cross-National_Study_of_171_Countries">here</a>.</em></p>
<p>The statistics on gun ownership are from the <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/publications/by-type/yearbook/small-arms-survey-2007.html">2007 Small Arms Survey</a>. <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country">Wikipedia shows similar numbers</a>.</em></p>
<h2 id="what-can-be-done-to-prevent-mass-shootings">What Can Be Done To Prevent Mass Shootings?</h2>
<p>Given the political realities, reducing the number of guns in the United States is unlikely. We’d need to pass tough gun control laws and have the largest gun buyback program in history. Even after the deadliest mass shooting in our nation’s 242-year history, the Las Vegas shooting, which left 58 people dead and 851 injured, there has been no change in our gun laws. Efforts to ban bump stocks, which increase the rate of fire of semi-automatic weapons, went nowhere.</p>
<h3 id="the-medias-role-in-mass-shootings">The Media’s Role in Mass Shootings</h3>
<p>However, another paper by professor Lankford suggests that changes in the way the media covers mass shooting could reduce their numbers and lethality. This <a href="https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/dont_name_them_1.0.pdf">paper</a>, co-authored with Eric Madfis, a professor of criminal justice at The University of Washington Tacoma, looks at how media coverage encourages mass shooters. They make three claims.</p>
<h4 id="claim-1-fame-motivates-mass-shooters">Claim 1: Fame Motivates Mass Shooters</h4>
<p>Many mass shooters expect their killings to make them famous. Professor Lankford found 24 cases of mass killers who were motivated by the desire to become famous. The Columbine killers fantasized about becoming well known and predicted, correctly it turns out, that a movie would be made about them. Another mass shooter left behind a note that read, “Just think tho, I’m gonna be fuckin famous.” The Sandy Hook shooter participated in online debates about “the most famous school shooting.”</p>
<p>Fame is a motivating factor for mass shooters. They expect to become famous and media coverage makes them so. And to be clear, the shooters aren’t expecting to glorified. They understand that the coverage will vilify them. It’s what they want.</p>
<h4 id="claim-2-a-competition-to-kill-more-people">Claim 2: A Competition to Kill More People</h4>
<p>Fame motivated shooters tend to be the most deadly. The want to be famous and know that this requires killing a lot of people. They understand that a higher body count means more coverage.</p>
<p>From the paper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooter summarized, “Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In their writings, the Columbine killers expressed a desire to kill more people than anyone before. They knew how many people had been killed in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. They wanted to kill more people, to beat the record, as it were.</p>
<p>Mass shooters believe that killing more people will increase the amount of attention they receive. And a number academic studies bear this out. Higher fatality rates lead to increased coverage. The more people they kill, the more famous they get.</p>
<h4 id="claim-3-copycats--contagion">Claim 3: Copycats & ‘Contagion’</h4>
<p>The Columbine killers predicted that they would ‘have followers.’ The Sandy Hook shooter studied the biographies and personalities of the Columbine shooters and other mass killers. He wrote, “Everyone knows that mass murderers are the cool kids.” Several subsequent shooters have cited the Sandy Hook killer as a role model.</p>
<p>Even without explicit copycat effects and emulation, media coverage of mass shootings leads to more shootings. From the paper:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Using advanced mathematical models, some scholars have found that active shootings, school shootings, and other mass killings are now so ‘contagious’ that a single incident increases the risk of subsequent attacks for the next two weeks.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What does the paper suggest should be done? The title of the paper tells the story:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t Name Them, Don’t Show Them, But Report Everything Else: A Pragmatic Proposal for Denying Mass Killers the Attention They Seek and Deterring Future Offenders</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Refusing to name the killers and refusing to show their faces would eliminate the motivation of fame seeking killers. It’s a technique used in the paper and in this article. Conversely, naming them and showing their faces is giving the killers exactly what they want.</p>
<p>The only reason to name the killers or show their faces is during an active manhunt, as with the Boston bombers. If the suspect is dead or captured, showing their faces and publishing their names is only giving them the fame they want.</p>
<p>Anderson Cooper has taken this stance, as well Denver anchorman Kyle Clark. This should be the policy at all major news media outlets. Cover their demographic details, their age, race and hometown. Write about their mental health, military service, or other relevant details. <strong>But stop making them famous</strong>. It’s what they want. And it leads to more killing and higher body counts.</p>
Using Webhooks in Inversoft Passporthttp://infomongo.com/posts/using-webhooks-in-inversoft-passport/2018-05-22T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/passport-webhook-spiderweb.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Spiderweb strung between two plants" />
</div>
<p>I wrote another post for the good folks at <a href="https://www.inversoft.com/">Inversoft</a>. This one is about <a href="https://www.inversoft.com/blog/2018/05/22/using-webhooks-in-passport-delete-user-data/?utm_source=webhook&utm_medium=jp&utm_campaign=postshare">using a webhook to respond to an event</a>.</p>
<p>Honestly, I was not that familiar with webhooks until I wrote the post and they are pretty cool. No wonder this approach is gaining popularity.</p>
<h2 id="what-is-a-webhook">What Is A Webhook?</h2>
<p>A webhook is a way to subscribe to an event. When the event occurs, your application gets notified. Webhooks provide real-time notifications. Instead of having to poll an API and watch for changes, you get notified when they occur.</p>
<p>In Passport, here’s how it works: You attach a webhook to one or more events in the system. In the post, we attach a webhook to the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">user.delete</code> event. When this event occurs, Passport posts a JSON payload to a URL you specify.</p>
<p>In your app, you create a route for that URL and respond when it gets called. The JSON contains information about the event.</p>
<p>In effect, you have created a callback, a simple messaging system between two web apps.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.inversoft.com/blog/2018/05/22/using-webhooks-in-passport-delete-user-data/?utm_source=webhook&utm_medium=jp&utm_campaign=postshare">Learn more about using webhooks in Inversoft Passport</a>.</p>
(Moderately) Extreme Programminghttp://infomongo.com/posts/moderately-extreme-programing/2018-05-09T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/building-architecture.jpg" class="full-width" alt="" />
</div>
<p>I got my start in technology working at <a href="http://www.quark.com/">Quark</a>. Quark was a great company and I learned a ton. I started in tech support, working the phones, helping to diagnose and fix customer problems. I did some QA work, some technical writing, product management and eventually UX design.</p>
<p>Quark was packed with smart people. You couldn’t swing a cat without hitting three or four legitimate geniuses. But the development process — particularly on the flagship project, QuarkXPress — was a mess.</p>
<p>The release cycles were very long. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuarkXPress#Version_history">Looking at the wikipedia page for QuarkXPress</a> — and yeah that’s how it’s spelled — there were seven years between the release of versions 3 and 4. Version 3.1 was the first release that ran on Windows and on the Mac, 3.3 was the first PPC native version. <a name="jump"></a>Only a few new features were introduced in this period. I worked at Quark from 1995 to 2000. I started supporting 3.3, saw the release of 4.0, and did UX design on version 5.</p>
<h2 id="the-hell-of-thousand-extensions">The Hell of Thousand Extensions</h2>
<p>Here’s what development looked like at Quark at the time. QuarkXPress supported plug-ins, which were officially called XTensions, because of course they were. Extensions added new features to the product. You could buy them from third-parties and XPress shipped with a bunch. Most of the new features of 4.0 were developed as extensions.</p>
<p>Product management picked the features for a release and development managers assigned engineers to work on them. Essentially, each engineer had their own extension to work on. Some features were bigger, of course, and multiple engineers might work on those, but in general it was one engineer to a feature, one extension per feature.</p>
<p>This was kind of a crazy system with some weird knock-on effects. In total, there were several dozen extensions that shipped with the product. But during development, the engineers generally wouldn’t load any other extensions. There were a lot of reasons for this. Build time was probably a factor, as was general stability. When a new build got delivered to QA, this would be the first time anyone had run the project with all the extensions. And of course they would interact in unusual ways. Fairly often, especially early in the cycle, the program wouldn’t even launch.</p>
<div>
<img src="/img/spark-spiral.jpg" class="full-width" alt="" />
</div>
<p>You’d log a bug, and get a note back from a developer that they couldn’t reproduce the problem. After some back and forth, it would turn out that they were testing in the latest version of their code and only running their extension. Often the bug would only occur with multiple extensions loaded.</p>
<p>Sometimes it wouldn’t be clear whose code was responsible for the problem, and who should fix the bug. The source of the bug might be in the core project, which had a lot of old code that people were frankly scared to touch.</p>
<p>Even without the oddities introduced by this system, it wasn’t an efficient way to staff the project. Management couldn’t really bring their priorities to bear. It was hard to tell how fast the team was moving. There wasn’t a good way to track progress beyond the bug count. There was always a long slog at the end of the release cycle, just endless bug fixing. The release date would get pushed back. More bugs would be fixed. Lather, rinse, repeat.</p>
<p>There were lots of other problems, too. Long requirements documents that nobody read or updated. QA, Engineering and Product Management all working in silos, usually on different floors. There wasn’t enough communication between departments and it didn’t feel like one large team.</p>
<h2 id="life-after-quark">Life After Quark</h2>
<p>After Quark, I worked at Creo. I worked with a bunch of the same folks I had worked with at Quark. Basically, I followed some of the geniuses to a new home . (I covered some of this in the story of <a href="/ux-design/tokens/">tokens</a>.)</p>
<p>Initially, development at Creo looked a lot like it did at Quark. We didn’t have extensions, but we did kind of follow the “one developer per feature” model. And we were initially working in silos, too. With a smaller team there was more communication, but not really enough. And a lot of familiar problems began to surface. It was hard to tell how fast we were moving and if we were working on the right things.</p>
<p>But fairly soon, we started doing <strong>Extreme Programming</strong>. We weren’t hard core believers, we didn’t do any pair programming, for example. But we did have a daily standup meeting and we wrote stories describing each new feature.</p>
<p>Once we started meeting every day, communication improved dramatically. And after we had been at it a while, we could always hit our release dates without any slogging.</p>
<p>I was doing UX design for the team, so I was one of the main “customer representatives.” As soon we made the switch, I had developers in my office all the time. We had lots of productive conversations. An engineer would raise an issue, like a data load process that was slower than anticipated. We’d talk about the various options and make some choices. This could result in a sort of “band-aid” being applied temporarily, and a new story written for the next iteration. Or we might change our approach, or adapt the design. But everyone had a much better picture of what “done” looked like and what the actual technical hurdles were.</p>
<p>The biggest change tho, was in how the project was scheduled. Initially, we had a very clear idea of what features we were going to implement and in what order. But as soon as we started working, that plan pretty much went out the window. Some of our feature ideas would just take longer to implement than they were worth. “It would be great to have that feature, but not if it is going to take a month to build.”</p>
<p>But the surprising thing was that as we built and used the application, we started to have new ideas about how it should work. Once we’d used a feature, we’d have ideas for similar features that took priority over the work we’d previously planned.</p>
<p>The standup meetings were a great way to see if something was stuck. Occasionally an engineer would give an update that something was “pretty close to done” and “just had some kinks to work out.” And then the next day they’d give pretty much the same update. By the third day of this, it was clear they were stuck. Maybe the design had problems. Maybe they just needed another pair of eyes, or maybe it was time to cut bait and drop the work.</p>
<p>And the secret to hitting our deadlines? It was always to drop scope. This was back in the days of shrink-wrapped software. Our deadlines were driven by a demos at trade shows. With fixed deadlines, the only thing to do was cut scope. As we got close to the date, we’d could all tell what was achievable and what needed to be deferred.</p>
<p>We were introduced to it as Extreme Programming (or rather eXtreme Programming), but most people would now recognize this as agile development. And what is the joke? Agile development is the worst software development methodology, <strong>except for all the others</strong>.</p>
<p>I have worked on agile teams with too much ceremony and way too many meetings. But when it works, it gets people communicating and making rational tradeoffs. It allows management to bring their priorities to bear and gets everyone pulling in the same direction.</p>
<h2 id="where-agile-goes-wrong">Where Agile Goes Wrong</h2>
<p>If your team is spending a lot of time estimating stories and measuring velocity, I think you are missing the point. The defense of measuring velocity is that it’s the only way to estimate when the project will hit some milestone. “We have to measure our velocity to see if we’ll hit our 1.5 release.”</p>
<p>The milestone is some set of features that were promised to a customer, to “the board” or some such. Often on these teams, product management is effectively absent. Somebody from <em>program management</em> is
tasked with “running the scrum” and communicating with product management.</p>
<p>However, this ignores a fundamental reality of software development. It’s a “scope, schedule or quality, choose two” kind of world. <em>(People talk about budget, schedule and scope, but I have never worked on a project that could be delivered faster by increasing the budget. The cost of bringing new people up to speed outweighs the benefits of adding them over the short term.)</em> If the set of features is set in stone, well then scope is fixed. And often, the date was promised too, so there’s your schedule. This is pretty much a ticket to long hours, poor quality and low morale.</p>
<p>Here’s a test to determine if your team is actually practicing agile development or just going thru the motions:</p>
<h3 id="has-the-scope-been-reduced-or-the-schedule-extended-in-the-last-two-months">Has the scope been reduced or the schedule extended in the last two months?</h3>
<p>If there hasn’t been a change to either, then something is missing. In my experience, what missing is a real stakeholder from project management. Having a dedicated scum master won’t paper over it.</p>
<p>In every project you learn things as you go. Sometimes, a feature you thought would take a while goes much quicker than expected. But life being what it is, usually what you learn is that there are more details that have to be accounted for and this will take additional time or resources. This isn’t because of bad faith, or a lack of expertise. It’s because there are things that can’t be known in advance, things that you discover only once the project is underway. And somebody involved in setting dates and deliverables has to take this onboard.</p>
<p>If your team doesn’t have a legitimate way to address these discoveries, then you aren’t being agile. You are just having standup meetings.</p>
Gun Death Rates Worldwidehttp://infomongo.com/posts/gun-death-rates/2018-05-04T00:00:00+00:00<p>How violent is the United States? How do wealth and industrialization affect gun death rates?</p>
<p>The data on gun deaths comes from the <a href="http://ghdx.healthdata.org/gbd-results-tool">Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation</a>, at the University of Washington. It excludes suicides and deaths from war or other “armed conflicts.” The figures listed are from 2016.</p>
<h2 id="us--western-europe">U.S. & Western Europe</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/western-europe.svg" class="full-width" />
</div>
<p>You have seen likely some variation of this graph before. It compares the death rates of Western Europe with those in the United states. It shows the number of deaths per 100,000 people.</p>
<p>Western Europe is a bit hazily defined. The chart shows nine representative countries, including the highest death rate (Portugal) and the lowest (the UK).</p>
<p>The wealthy industrialized countries of Europe have some of the lowest rates of gun deaths in the world.</p>
<p><a name="jump"></a>
The U.S. has a lot in common with these countries. We are also a wealthy, industrialized nation. Compared with Western Europe, we have a slightly higher average income. We also have much higher levels of income inequality.</p>
<h2 id="north--central-america">North & Central America</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/america.svg" class="full-width" />
</div>
<p>This graph shows how the U.S. compares to our neighbors in North & Central America. These two regions have the highest rates of gun deaths in the world.</p>
<p>Canada is the outlier here. The rate of gun violence is on par with the highest rates in Western Europe.</p>
<p>El Salvador has the highest rate of gun deaths in the world. Again, this data isn’t counting deaths from armed conflicts. Of the counties not having a war, El Salvador has the highest rate of gun deaths.</p>
<p>Except for Canada and the U.S., most of these counties are fairly poor. Income inequality is somewhat higher in these countries than in the U.S.</p>
<h2 id="south-america">South America</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/south-america.svg" class="full-width" />
</div>
<p>The chart omits the Guyanas, with rate of 8.86 gun deaths per 100,000 and Uruguay, with a rate of 2.94.</p>
<p>Bolivia is a much poorer country, but has a rate similar to the United States.</p>
<h2 id="the-caribbean">The Caribbean</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/caribbean.svg" class="full-width" />
</div>
<p>American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands are US Territories. The US Virgin Islands has the highest rate of gun deaths in the Caribbean, while American Samoa has one of the lowest.</p>
<p>Bermuda, Antigua and Barbuda and the Bahamas all have similar average income levels, about half the average income of the U.S. Bermuda and Antigua and Barbuda have fairly low rates of gun deaths, while the rate in the Bahamas is much higher.</p>
<p>Haiti, a very poor country, has about the same rate of gun deaths as the U.S.</p>
<h2 id="the-middle-east">The Middle East</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/middle-east.svg" class="full-width" />
</div>
<p>The rates of gun death are much lower in the Middle East than in the Western hemisphere, again omitting deaths due to armed conflict. The richest countries in the region have fairly low gun death rates, the lowest are comparable to Europe.</p>
<p>Iran, Pakistan and Israel all have very similar rates. Israel is a wealthy industrialized nation, with very strict gun control laws. Iran is less wealthy and industrialized, while Pakistan is a fairly poor county.</p>
<h2 id="sub-saharan-africa">Sub-Saharan Africa</h2>
<div>
<img src="/img/africa.svg" class="full-width" />
</div>
<p>The countries shown are representative of the region, including the three with the highest levels of deaths and the country with the lowest. These are among the poorest nations in the world. Burundi is the second poorest county in the world, <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?year_high_desc=false">according to the World Bank</a>. South Africa and Cape Verde are among the wealthiest and most developed countries in the region, yet they have the highest rates of death from gun violence.</p>
<h2 id="what-conclusions-can-we-reach">What Conclusions Can We Reach?</h2>
<p>Among the wealthy industrialized nations, the United States is an outlier. Our rates of death from guns are not found anywhere else in the industrialized world. Most of these countries have have much more strict control laws, and more to the point, many fewer guns. None of them have a constitutional right to own a firearm. This is one area where American exceptionalism is undeniable.</p>
<p>The Western hemisphere, except for Canada, is much more violent than other parts of the world. Even compared to “war-torn” countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Counties involved in the international drug trade have higher rates of firearm deaths, including most of Central and South America. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium, and it is a violent and dangerous place, even without counting the deaths from armed conflict. A conflict we have been involved with since 2001, by the way.</p>
<p>As far as gun deaths, here is the neighborhood we live in:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Country</th>
<th>Rate of Gun Deaths</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Argentina</td>
<td>3.37 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Bolivia</td>
<td>3.73 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>United States</td>
<td>3.85 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Haiti</td>
<td>3.90 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Iraq</td>
<td>4.28 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Looking at this data at the country level is somewhat misleading. Deaths from gun violence are higher in cities than in rural areas. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation provides data at the state level, but not down to the city level, with the exception of the District of Columbia.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>State</th>
<th>Rate of Gun Deaths</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Vermont</td>
<td>2.07 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Colorado</td>
<td>2.52 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>California</td>
<td>3.56 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Illinois</td>
<td>4.45 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>District of Columbia</td>
<td>9.00 per 100 K</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>It would be interesting to look at the data at the city level. A handful of neighborhoods in Chicago raise the rate for the whole of Illinois.</p>
Potatoes?http://infomongo.com/posts/potatoes/2018-04-25T00:00:00+00:00<p>Around 2002, I was traveling for work. I was doing a trade show, demoing Six Degrees in London. My wife, Nancy, was traveling with me.</p>
<div>
<img src="/img/potatoes-painting.jpg" class="full-width" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">"Potatoes?"" A painting I made at the time.</p>
<p>The trip turned into a crash course in British food. Some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>Jet-lagged on the day of our arrival, we stopped to buy sandwiches from a convenience store. A good London shop will have a wall of refrigerator cases dedicated to sandwiches, each cut in half and packaged in triangular plastic. They might have fifteen linear feet of sandwiches, floor to ceiling, fully two-thirds of which feature bacon. Delicious. We stood in the shop, picked our sandwiches and then some crisps (chips) to go with. Nancy decided to go with the very British “Turkey, Sage and Rosemary” flavored crisps. <a name="jump"></a>These turned out to be so savory that they were inedible, at least to our American palates.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Out to eat one night at an Italian restaurant, not a very good one, I ordered lasagna. It was served with a side of mashed potatoes.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, we had a lot of terrific food too, London being what it is. If I remember correctly, we had a delicious dinner at the <a href="http://northseafishrestaurant.co.uk">North Sea Fish Restaurant</a> in Bloomsbury.</p>
<p>Our hotel included breakfast. Oddly, instead of serving yourself, they had waiters. It was pretty posh. Up early one morning headed to the trade show, still partially asleep, our waiter asked what I wanted. I ordered eggs and potatoes.</p>
<p>“<em>Potatoes?</em>” replied the waiter, incredulously, The reply was fairly dripping with contempt for the animal seated before him.</p>
<p>Because, altho you can get potatoes as a side with your lasagna, breakfast is the one meal of the day without any. I still think you could open an American style breakfast place with all the classics: bacon, eggs and hash browns; chicken-fried steak and eggs, and the like. You’d make a mint. Probably want to be open for lunch until the Londoners get used to hash browns at breakfast, tho.</p>
How Dangerous is Driving While High?http://infomongo.com/posts/driving-while-high/2018-04-20T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img src="/img/Ernie-and-Bert-Glitch.jpg" class="full-width" alt="" />
</div>
<p>I watched a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pot-420-colorado-challenges-policing-high-drivers/">CBS This Morning story about driving while high</a>. It’s April 20 (4/20) so we got to have some pot news.</p>
<p>The story was about how there aren’t really tests or standards for what marijuana impairment looks like. The cops don’t have good ways to assess how much pot someone has ingested. And nobody is sure how much is too much.</p>
<p>At one point Barry Petersen, the CBS news correspondent, asks a Colorado state prosecutor:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“You could have three marijuana cigarettes, but it might affect you differently if you were a regular user than if you’ve come from out of state and this is your first time?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And while this is true, it does effect people differently. This kind of misses the point. First, that is a huge dose. Second, we don’t really know what effect cannabis has on driving.</p>
<p>The piece opens with story about Ron Edwards, who was killed riding his motorcycle. “According to police, the car’s driver had marijuana in his system.” This is a tragic story. But are we sure pot had anything to do with it? According to this <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2017/08/25/colorado-marijuana-traffic-fatalities/">Denver Post story</a>, the driver “tested positive for marijuana use below the legal limit and charged only with careless driving.” His widow believes that we have laws wrong, and marijuana was the cause. Could be, but how do we know?</p>
<p>Watching the piece, it seemed pretty clear that no one with any firsthand experience with dope was involved in the making of it. They were reasoning thru analogy. Pot is kinda like booze. Drunk driving is bad. Therefore, high driving must be bad too.</p>
<p>Maybe, <strong>but I’m not convinced</strong>, not by this reasoning. Alcohol is a depressant. It slows your reaction time. It impairs your judgement, lowering your inhibitions. <strong>Drinking makes you slower to react and more likely to drive fast and recklessly</strong>.</p>
<p>Marijuana is not a depressant and while it does impair your judgement, it doesn’t lower your inhibitions. It tends to raise them, as shown by the following studies.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“By contrast, people who are slightly stoned may be more risk-averse and overestimate their impairment. For instance, people who have smoked just a third of a joint will say they are impaired, even when driving tests show no such effects, according to a 1993 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>( from a <a href="https://www.livescience.com/51450-driving-on-marijuana-alcohol-dangerous.html">livescience.com article</a> )</em></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Because of […] this and an increased awareness that they are impaired, marijuana smokers tend to compensate effectively while driving by utilizing a variety of behavioral strategies.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><em>( from this <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10550490902786934">study published in The American Journal of Addictions</a> )</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14725950">This study</a>, by the Experimental Psychopharmacology Unit at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“…culpability surveys showed little evidence that crashed drivers who only used cannabis are more likely to cause accidents than drug free drivers.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is little evidence that cannabis use alone increases accident rates. This study also points out a problem in most research:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“However, most culpability surveys have established cannabis use among crashed drivers by determining the presence of an inactive metabolite of THC in blood or urine that can be detected for days after smoking and can only be taken as evidence for past use of cannabis.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, <strong>neither blood nor urine tests are a good way to determine if you are high right now</strong>. At best, they are an indication that you have been high recently. However, this may be masking the effects of pot on driving, because you are effectively averaging in the accident rates of people who were not high at the time of their accidents.</p>
<p>Another <a href="http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/T95/paper/s1p2.html">study from the Institute for Human Psychopharmacology, University of Maastricht</a> tested subjects after ingesting marijuana.</p>
<p>In the study, participants smoked marijuana and then took a driving test. They tested three groups, each using slightly different parameters. The participants were always accompanied by a licensed driving instructor who could take control of the car if needed, using a redundant set of controls. One of the conclusions reached:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Evidence from the present and previous studies strongly suggests that alcohol encourages risky driving whereas THC encourages greater caution, at least in experiments.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In each of the three tests, the study found scant evidence of decreased driving performance. What they found was similar to other medications and to legal amounts of alcohol.</p>
<h2 id="wrapping-up">Wrapping Up</h2>
<p>It’s early days. There have not yet been many studies of the effects cannabis has on driving. Cannabis alone does not seem to have much of a negative effect on driving performance. Also, it’s very hard to get a measure of how high someone is. Even blood tests may not show this accurately.</p>
<p><strong>A word of caution:</strong> many studies show that cannabis and alcohol used together are bad news. People who both smoked and drank perform worse at lower blood alcohol levels than people who only drank alcohol. Effectively, they test as if they are drunker than their blood alcohol levels would suggest.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Drunk and stoned driving is much worse than regular old drunk driving.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So be safe out there on 4/20. Probably best for everybody if you take a Lyft.</p>
English Spelling is Chaotic Evilhttp://infomongo.com/posts/English-spelling-is-chaotic-evil/2018-04-17T00:00:00+00:00<p>English spelling is a yard sale. It is highly irregular. The way words are written bears little relationship to how they are pronounced. This makes learning to read more difficult, and spelling a challenge.</p>
<p>Not all languages work this way. Spanish, for example, is much more regular. It has a much closer relationship between pronunciation and spelling. In Spanish, each letter or combination of letters, makes a single sound.</p>
<h2 id="examples-of-strange-english-spelling">Examples of Strange English Spelling</h2>
<p>Look at how many ways the letters “ough” can be pronounced:</p>
<ul>
<li>through (rhymes with ‘shoe’)</li>
<li>dough (rhymes with ‘go’)</li>
<li>bought (rhymes with ‘shot’)</li>
<li>drought (rhymes with ‘out’)</li>
<li>rough (rhymes with ‘stuff’)</li>
<li>cough (rhymes with ‘off’)</li>
</ul>
<p>There are six different pronunciations. It’s arbitrary. The only way to learn these pronunciations is to memorize them. This is one of the worst examples in English, but these are all common words.</p>
<p>The “ough” example shows how one set of letters can be pronounced differently, but the opposite problem also plagues English. Look at all the different ways that the short “e” vowel sound can be spelled.</p>
<ul>
<li>red</li>
<li>bread</li>
<li>said</li>
<li>many</li>
<li>bury</li>
<li>friend</li>
<li>guest</li>
<li>l<em>eo</em>pard</li>
<li><em>ae</em>sthetic</li>
</ul>
<p>The last two are odd spellings of uncommon words, but that is a wide variety of spellings for one of the most common vowel sounds in the language.</p>
<p>The spelling of long vowels is even stranger. The following is a list of words pronounced with the long “o” sound.</p>
<ul>
<li>road</li>
<li>bone</li>
<li>go</li>
<li>toe</li>
<li>though</li>
<li>low</li>
<li>sew</li>
<li>bur<em>eau</em> (French loan word)</li>
<li>brooch (ryhmes with coach)</li>
</ul>
<p>The last two are unusual spellings, but all the others are common words. The words “low” and “sew” have ambiguous pronunciations. They could easily rhyme with “how” and “dew”.</p>
<h2 id="how-did-we-get-here">How Did We Get Here</h2>
<p>The rules for English spelling were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English">codified around 1470</a>. The language at this time was very different. We now call it Middle English. But while the spelling has been more or less fixed for the last five hundred years, pronunciation has changed dramatically. For example, the language went thru the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift">Great Vowel Shift</a>, which changed the pronunciation of all of the long vowels.</p>
<p>Additionaly, English has a large number of “loan words” borrowed from other languages. Many of these retain their original spellings.</p>
<p>Essentially, Modern English spelling captures the pronunciation of a much older language, combined with the spellings of loan words imported from other languages. Yep, that’s a dynamite plan.</p>
<h3 id="more-sounds-than-letters">More Sounds than Letters</h3>
<p>There are about 44 phonemes in English, or 44 different sounds. Our alphabet has only 26 characters. There are more sounds than letters. Some phonemes are spelled using combinations of letters, like the “sh” sound in “shop,” but even these are not regular. The same phoneme is spelled differently in words like “action,” “sugar” and “chef.”</p>
<p>As a result, there are multiple ways to spell nearly every phoneme. And most letters have multiple pronunciations depending on their position in a word and the context.</p>
<h2 id="what-can-be-done-about-this">What Can Be Done About This?</h2>
<p>There have been many attempts to reform English spelling. Most of these failed because they were too radical. If the system tries to fix too many problems, it changes the spelling of most words. This is a non-starter. It would require everyone learning to read all over again.</p>
<p>Here is an example of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_Spelling">Cut Spelling</a>, a modern reform effort:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Th Space Race was th competition between th United States and th Soviet Union, rufly from 1957 to 1975. It involvd th efrts by each of these nations to explor outr space with satlites, to be th 1st to send there a human being and to send mand and unmand missions on th Moon with a safe return of th humans to Erth.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And an example of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundSpel">SoundSpel</a>, a reform effort from 1910:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was on the ferst dae of the nue yeer the anounsment was maed, allmoest siemultaeniusly frum three obzervatorys, that the moeshun of the planet Neptune, the outermoest of all planets that wheel about the Sun, had becum verry erratic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Examples like these are why spelling reform has generally been regarded as the work of harmless crackpots. <em>(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin%27s_phonetic_alphabet">Benjamin Franklin’s proposed reform</a> added letters to the alphabet, a truly crackpot idea.)</em></p>
<p>There have been some successful reform efforts, like the one championed by Noah Webster. His first dictionary, published in 1806, contained <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Compendious_Dictionary_of_the_English_Language#ORTHOGRAPHY.">an essay advocating for changes to English spelling</a>. These spelling changes — with “color” replacing “colour,” “center” replacing “centre,” and the like” — became the basis for American spelling as distinct from British. Webster didn’t invent these spellings, he popularized them.</p>
<h3 id="principles-for-spelling-reform">Principles for Spelling Reform</h3>
<p>I have played around with a number of alternate spelling systems and most of them, including some I have devised, are pretty much bat-shit insane. But I think the successful reform efforts have some things in common.</p>
<ul>
<li>They are modest. Rather than trying to solve every problem, they focus on a small number of changes.</li>
<li>The new spellings are shorter than those they replace.</li>
<li>The new spellings have unambiguous pronunciations.</li>
<li>They avoid changing the spelling in a way that collides with an existing word. Changing “might” to “mite” is confusing because the word “mite” already exists.</li>
<li>They often embrace alternate spellings that already exist, but are not standard.</li>
</ul>
<p>In my writing, I use some non-standard spellings:</p>
<ul>
<li>thru</li>
<li>tho</li>
<li>altho</li>
<li>nite</li>
<li>tonite</li>
<li>lite</li>
</ul>
<p>The following seem like good candidates, altho I don’t use them regularly.</p>
<ul>
<li>luv instead of love</li>
<li>ruff instead of rough</li>
<li>tuff instead of tough</li>
<li>laff instead of laugh</li>
</ul>
<p>There are a whole host of words that end in “ve” that would be pronounced the same with the final “e” dropped. Some of these would seem to be good candidates:</p>
<ul>
<li>hav instead of have</li>
<li>giv instead of give</li>
<li>liv instead of live</li>
</ul>
<p>The last change, “live” to “liv” would help distinguish this from the word “live,” meaning alive or happening now.</p>
<p>When manuscripts were hand written, it was hard to tell the letters “u” and “v” apart. Adding an “e” to the end of words that would otherwise end in “u” or “v” helped make them easier to read. This became part of standard English spelling, but it has outlived its usefulness.</p>
Interactive TV Adshttp://infomongo.com/posts/Interactive-TV-ads/2018-03-16T00:00:00+00:00<p>Like more and more people, we <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord-cutting">cut the cord</a> and stopped paying for cable TV sometime last year. Most of the shows we watch are ad free, but some still have ads. Nearly all of these are just standard television ads. The same kind that have existed my whole life. Some of them are very short, like less than 15 seconds, but this is the only obvious change.</p>
<p>It seems odd to me that television ads are stuck in stasis. Everybody who has dropped cable uses some kind computer to watch shows and movies, even if it’s a <a href="https://www.apple.com/tv/">tiny computer</a> near the TV or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZV9RDKK/">some</a> <a href="https://store.google.com/product/chromecast_2015">kind</a> of <a href="https://www.roku.com/products/streaming-stick-plus">HDMI stick</a>. This seems like a missed opportunity.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why haven’t television ads evolved?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some ads have an interactive element, but it’s never very well designed. There are two main types of ‘interactive’ ads.</p>
<p>Sometimes when you start a show, before it plays, you have to <strong>“pick your ad experience.”</strong> You are offered a <em>choice</em> between two different ads from the same company and you have to choose one. So much wishful thinking. Has anyone ever seriously evaluated this <em>choice</em>? I just click OK on the first one that highlights. I’m not sure I even follow the rationale. Does the company actually think I prefer one ad over the other? Or do they think that just having to make a choice helps me remember the ad? I could almost understand this type of ad, if the choice was between two different products from two different companies. At least the advertiser would learn that I prefer their product or ad relative to another. But it’s just a bad experience. Don’t force me to make a choice I don’t care about.</p>
<p>The other kind of interactive ad has a “learn more” button that is sort of passively present during the ad. If you click the button, you get taken away to visit a landing page immediately. Which seems insane. I am enjoying a show, but your ad is so on point I want to stop watching and learn more, right now.</p>
<p><strong>This type of ad could work, if ‘learn more’ was asynchronous</strong>, if it didn’t interrupt watching the show.</p>
<h3 id="how-this-could-work-on-a-device-like-a-roku">How this could work on a device like a Roku</h3>
<p>The ad runs with a ‘learn more’ or ‘send me additional info’ button on screen. If you click the button, you’ll get an email. Whatever service you are using, they have your email address. The company can send you an email with a link to a landing page. That you can look at later, probably on a different device. At minimum, they get two impressions. The ad they showed and the ad they emailed. Three if you actually visit the landing page.</p>
<p>If it’s the type of product where a longer video explainer would be useful, then download it in the background and offer to show it later. On the Roku, there’s a big space on the home screen dedicated to advertising shows and channels. This would be a natural space to promote this product that you expressed interest in. Probably the company would send an email too.</p>
<p>The key would be to educate people about what happens when they click ‘learn more’ or whatever the button is labeled. Otherwise, people will assume it’s an interruption. The best way to teach people about these new ads? Run a short ad explaining the concept.</p>
<p>The explainer ad would look something like this: First you see a ‘learn more’ button on screen in a sample ad. Cut to a close-up of the remote, showing you which button to press. Then an email arriving, and a person looking at it on a computer or a phone. All with a voiceover explaining the concept. The service could make sure one of these ads runs before any ad with a ‘learn more’ button. At least until you have clicked ‘learn more’ couple of times.</p>
<p>This would also advertise the concept to advertisers.</p>
<p>Why isn’t Hulu or Roku doing this? They have a fair amount of demographic data about their users. Seems like linking this to email would be valuable and something that TV advertisers would be interested in. If it’s an ad for a product, put a coupon in the email. Tell me in the ad that I can click for a coupon.</p>
An Oddity Casting Netflix from iOS to my Rokuhttp://infomongo.com/posts/cast-from-netflix-to-roku/2018-03-01T00:00:00+00:00<p>I just got a <a href="https://www.roku.com/products/streaming-stick-plus">Roku Streaming Stick+</a> and so far, I dig it. I bought it to replace an older Roku 2, that was starting to make a death rattle: channels would take a long time to open and sometimes streaming would get glitchy and require a restart. HBO NOW, I’m looking at you. Seemed like an “older hardware, newer software” problem. I chose this model based on the low price and the <a href="https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-media-streamers/">Wirecutter</a> review.</p>
<p><img src="/img/roku-promo.png" class="full-width no-border" alt="Roku streaming stick and remote" /></p>
<!--more-->
<p><a name="jump"></a></p>
<p>I was looking forward to the updated Netflix app (channel), with profile support. I also assumed I’d be able to ‘cast’ Netflix shows from my phone to the Roku. That is, search for shows in the Netflix app on my phone and then play them on the Roku.</p>
<p>This kinda worked on my otherwise terrible Vizio TV. It worked well enough to convince me that this was the way to live. Find things to watch on the phone. Watch them on the TV. But with the Vizio it was crap shoot if the video would play in high or low-res, or endlessly buffer midway thru a show. These things are important, it turns out.</p>
<h3 id="the-internet-says-it-will-work-but-it-doesnt">The Internet Says it will Work, but it Doesn’t</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/us/cast-netflix-youtube-roku,review-3576.html">This page provides simple instructions</a> for casting from the Netflix app to a Roku. But it didn’t work, at least not at first. So in case anyone else runs into the problem, here’s what happened.</p>
<p><img src="/img/netflix-cast-crop.jpg" width="320" class="retina center no-border" alt="Screen shot of the Netflix mobile app." /></p>
<p class="caption">The cast icon is right above Dave's head.</p>
<p>I have a <a href="https://www.tp-link.com/us/products/details/Archer-C7.html">TP-LINK Archer C7 AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router</a>, which I have been happy with. (The name makes me die a little inside, because I can imagine the nightmare committee behind it.) Like a lot of modern wireless routers, it provides both a 2.4 GHz network and 5 GHz network, because that’s what makes it dual band, you savage.</p>
<p>I originally connected the Roku to the 5 GHz network, because 5 is larger than 2.4 and because it goes thru walls. Or something. With the Roku on this network, when I launched the Netflix app on my phone, and clicked the <strong>cast</strong> icon, the Roku didn’t show up. The terrible Vizio was there, but not the Roku.</p>
<h3 id="a-solution-or-at-least-a-workaround">A Solution (or at least a Workaround)</h3>
<p>When I put the Roku on the 2.4 GHz network, boom, problem solved. Now the Roku shows up in the menu of devices I can cast, to.</p>
<p>Yeah, the 5 GHz network is theoretically faster, but I tend to get the same throughput on both networks. I assume that it’s a defect in my router that keeps this from working over 5 GHz, but I’m guessing.</p>
<p>This also works for in the YouTube app. It uses the same icon, and both apps, apparently, use the <a href="http://www.dial-multiscreen.org">DIAL</a> protocol to make this magic work.</p>
<h3 id="other-niceties-of-the-roku-streaming-stick">Other Niceties of the Roku Streaming Stick+</h3>
<p>It’s a tiny HDMI stick, like an over-grown thumb drive. Kind of amazing that there is a computer in there, with enough CPU, memory and wifi to stream movies off the internet. It’s USB powered and worked fine when plugged into the USB port on the Vizio. Minimal cable madness.</p>
<p>Roku really have setup and installation nailed. This went easy and quickly. The hardest part was entering the wifi password. Without having to enter any codes or even the brand name of the TV, somehow the remote configured itself to control the volume of the TV during the setup process.</p>
<p>The remote also has voice search. And Roku make a smart phone app that acts as a remote. Between voice and the smart phone keyboard you rarely have to enter text using the remote and an onscreen keyboard, which is cumbersome.</p>
How To Store User Data in Inversoft Passporthttp://infomongo.com/posts/Inversort-Passport-How-To/2018-03-01T00:00:00+00:00<p><a href="https://www.inversoft.com/blog/2018/02/28/storing-user-data-passport/?utm_source=jphilips&utm_medium=authorpost&utm_campaign=storingurls">I wrote about using Inversoft Passport</a>, an Identity and User Management system with a simple, easy-to-use API, and fantastic customer support.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.inversoft.com/blog/2018/02/28/storing-user-data-passport/?utm_source=jphilips&utm_medium=authorpost&utm_campaign=storingurls">The article</a> shows how to quickly stand up a sample project and use the API to store additional user data in the system.</p>
<p>I’m looking to do more technical writing, so if you are looking for a writer email me at <a href="mailto:john@infomongo.com">john@infomongo.com</a></p>
Responsive by Default Layoutshttp://infomongo.com/posts/responsive-by-default/2018-02-21T00:00:00+00:00<p>I was learning more about <a href="https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/">flex box</a>, when I came across an interesting article on Smashing Magazine, <a href="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/02/media-queries-responsive-design-2018/">Using Media Queries For Responsive Design In 2018</a> by the brilliant Rachel Andrew. In it, she explains the “responsive by default” properties that flex and grid layouts can have.</p>
<p>I’m gonna focus on flex layouts, rather than grid. I know <a href="https://caniuse.com/#feat=css-grid">grid</a> is the new hotness, but for now, I’m sticking with flex because the <a href="https://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox">browser support</a> is better.</p>
<h3 id="a-working-example">A Working Example</h3>
<p>Have a look at this <a href="../responsive-flex-layout/" target="_blank">sample page</a>. If the window is larger than 640 pixels wide, the picture and text are side by side. Smaller than that, and the picture is above the text. <strong>All of this is done without any media queries</strong>. <em>(If you are on a mobile device, rotate your phone into landscape to see the side-by-side layout.)</em></p>
<div class="wide center">
<img src="/img/flex-row.png" class="full-width border" alt="" />
<p class="caption">iPhone 8 in landscape, window is 736 pixels wide</p>
<img src="/img/flex-wrap.png" class="full-width border" alt="" />
<p class="caption">iPhone 8 in portrait, window is 414 pixels wide</p>
</div>
<div class="wide">
<h3 id="the-html">The HTML</h3>
<div class="language-html highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><span class="nt"><div</span> <span class="na">class=</span><span class="s">"wrap"</span><span class="nt">></span>
<span class="nt"><div</span> <span class="na">class=</span><span class="s">"image"</span><span class="nt">></span>
<span class="nt"><img</span> <span class="na">src=</span><span class="s">"/img/arches-delicate-1-thumbs-up.jpg"</span><span class="nt">></span>
<span class="nt"></div></span>
<span class="nt"><div</span> <span class="na">class=</span><span class="s">"text"</span><span class="nt">></span>
<span class="nt"><p</span> <span class="na">class=</span><span class="s">"title"</span><span class="nt">></span>Delicate Arch<span class="nt"></p></span>
<span class="nt"><p></span>Visiting the “Delicate Arch” in Utah’s Arches National Park. It doesn‘t look that delicate. I think they should call it “License Plate Arch.”<span class="nt"></p></span>
<span class="nt"></div></span>
<span class="nt"></div></span>
</code></pre></div> </div>
</div>
<div class="wide">
<h3 id="the-css">The CSS</h3>
<div class="language-css highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><span class="nc">.wrap</span> <span class="p">{</span>
<span class="nl">display</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">flex</span><span class="p">;</span>
<span class="nl">flex-wrap</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="n">wrap</span><span class="p">;</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
<span class="nc">.wrap</span> <span class="o">></span> <span class="o">*</span> <span class="p">{</span>
<span class="nl">flex</span><span class="p">:</span> <span class="m">1</span> <span class="m">1</span> <span class="m">320px</span><span class="p">;</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
</code></pre></div> </div>
</div>
<p>The first rule <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">display: flex</code> establishes our flex container. The second declaration <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-wrap: wrap</code> allows the items within it to wrap to new lines rather than just overflowing and being clipped by the flex container. (The default behavior is <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-wrap: nowrap</code>.)</p>
<p>But the real key is the second rule <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex: 1 1 320px</code>. We are applying this to the direct children of the flex container, our flex items. It’s using the flex shorthand to set the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-grow</code>, <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-shrink</code> and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-basis</code> properties at the same time.</p>
<p>Flex-grow and flex-shrink set up proportions for each of the flex items. Here we are making them all equal, so the image and text are the same width. They each take up 50% of the width of the container. If we wanted the image to be twice as wide the text, we’d set its flex-grow to <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">2</code> and leave the text at <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">1</code>. More on flex-shrink in a minute.</p>
<h3 id="what-is-flex-basis">What is flex-basis?</h3>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/css-flexbox-1/#flex-grow-property">the spec</a>, the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-basis</code> property sets the “the initial main size of the flex item”. Which is pretty much clear as mud. <strong>In practice, when set to a length, the flex-basis sets the minimum width of the object</strong> (or the height when using flex columns instead of rows).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In practice, when set to a length, the flex-basis sets the minimum width of the object</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In our example, we have a flex container with two items. Each item has a flex-basis of <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">320px</code>. When the container is wider than 640 pixels (320 × 2), the items display side-by-side. But if the container is narrower, then the second item pops down to the next line. That’s what <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-wrap: wrap</code> is doing. Without this, in a narrower window, part of the text would be clipped by the viewport, and the page would scroll horizontally.</p>
<p>And because we set the flex items to grow, they expand to fill the available space. In a window that’s 1000 pixels wide, each item would be 500 pixels wide. But interestingly, in a 400 pixel widow, each item wraps onto its own line, but the components still expand to fill the available width. Each item will be 400 pixels wide, <strong>each filling the width of the container.</strong></p>
<h2 id="wrapping-up">Wrapping Up</h2>
<p>Using flex-basis allows you to define a minimum width for the items. If there isn’t enough room, the items will wrap onto their own lines, yet each still fills the space available. That’s the basis for a responsive layout. (And grid has a very similar property, <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">min-max:</code>, that can be used to achieve similar results.)</p>
<h3 id="extra-credit">Extra Credit</h3>
<p>You may have noticed that we set <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">flex-shrink</code> to <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">1</code>, which allows the items to shrink. We could have set it to 0, which would prevent them from shrinking. To see a difference, you have make the container narrower than 320 pixels. Allowing the items to shrink means that in a 300 pixel wide container, each flex item shrinks to 300 pixels wide. If they can’t shrink, then 320 pixels is the minimum size and in a narrower container the items would be clipped on their right edges.</p>
<p>The <a href="../responsive-flex-layout/" target="_blank">sample page</a> is also using flex box to achieve a sticky footer. It’s <a href="https://philipwalton.github.io/solved-by-flexbox/demos/sticky-footer/">adapted from this page</a>. View the source to see the CSS applied to the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><body></code> and <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><main></code> elements,</p>
<p>Originally published on the <a href="https://moonsault.co/2018/02/21/responsive-by-default">moonsault blog</a></p>
The Problem with ‘Gathering Requirements’http://infomongo.com/posts/on-gathering-requirements/2018-02-14T00:00:00+00:00<p>As I was reading <a href="https://articles.uie.com/requirements_gathering/">this post</a> by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Spool">UX Legend, Jared Spool</a>, I found myself nodding in agreement hard enough that neck injury seemed like a real possibility. Seriously, the article is a gem. <a href="https://articles.uie.com/requirements_gathering/">You should go read it now</a>.</p>
<p>The article highlights a problem I see again and again in software projects. The problem is the belief that people inside the company have the all the answers. That they know what needs to be built and requirements gathering is a simply matter of collecting that information.</p>
<p>Spool puts it this way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When we’re gathering requirements, we’re saying the team is comprised of two types of people: those who know what we need and those who need to discover it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The activity in question is called <strong>Research & Development</strong>. And we are skipping the “research” part. At least we have gotten more realistic in one way: this department is usually called just <strong>Development</strong> now.</p>
<p>Sometimes the cause for this rush to requirements is the project sponsor. The person with the idea for the project has “deep knowledge” of the industry and clear idea of what “the market” needs. Sometimes the cause is project management trying to fill out a gant chart. Either way it’s a missed opportunity.</p>
<p><strong>The remedy is to test your hypothesis</strong>. “We have a theory about what people want, let’s see what they think.” Find a simple way, using a prototype, screen designs or wireframes to test your theory with actual people who will use it. Any honest attempt at this will teach you something. The design and product will improve.</p>
<p>Think of it this way: You can wait and test your hypothesis in the market with the release of your first version. Or you can accelerate the process, learn more about what your user’s want and incorporate this into your 1.0.</p>
<p>Originally published on the <a href="https://moonsault.co/2018/02/14/on-gathering-requirements">moonsault blog</a></p>
Obituary for Judy Phillipshttp://infomongo.com/posts/judy-phillips-obit/2018-02-06T00:00:00+00:00<p>Posting this here so it has a permanent home on the web. Love you mom.</p>
<div class="mom">
<img src="/img/Judy-Phillips.jpg" width="264" class="float shrink pull" alt="Judy Phillips" />
</div>
<p>Judith Marie (Cunningham) Phillips died peacefully in hospice on November 6, 2017 in Wheat Ridge, CO at the age of 77.</p>
<p>Judy is survived by her husband Pat; sons Mike (Christi) and John (Nancy); grandchildren Nick, Lauren and Eric; cousins Ron, Kay, John and Jim Cunningham; and sisters-in-law Eileen (Wayne) Mueske, Peggy (Don) Storrs and Lyn Phillips.</p>
<p>Judy was born December 8, 1939 in Denver, the only child of John and Jewel Cunningham. She graduated from the Colorado State College of Education in 1962 with a degree in Elementary Education. She married Pat in 1963 and they celebrated their 53rd anniversary last December. The couple met while attending St. Francis de Sales high school. She taught for Jefferson County, at both Slater and Kullerstrand Elementary.</p>
<p>Judy was an outstanding teacher and parent. She was active in the PTA and instrumental in getting the soccer field at Kullerstrand. She used her training in child psychology to help Pat coach both sons’ soccer teams. Judy was proud of her Irish heritage, celebrating many a St. Paddy’s at Clancy’s Pub in Wheat Ridge. She loved to read and belonged to the neighborhood book club for more than 30 years.</p>
<p>A funeral is scheduled for 10 am Friday, November 17 at St. Joseph Church, 969 Ulysses St, Golden, CO, with a viewing at 9 am. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Kullerstrand Elementary at 12225 W. 38th Ave. Wheat Ridge, CO 80033. The family would like to thank Cori Davis for the wonderful care she provided Judy.</p>
Unabomber Researchhttp://infomongo.com/posts/unambomber-research/2017-10-09T00:00:00+00:00<div>
<img class="full-width" src="/img/manhunt-unabomber.jpg" alt="Manhunt: Unabomber logo from Tv series" />
</div>
<p>I binge-watched <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/manhunt/s01/">Manhunt: Unabomber</a> on Netflix recently. It’s a dramatic retelling of the FBI’s hunt for the Unabomber. I enjoyed the show, but it was obvious that they took liberties with the facts. Which made me curious about the actual events. So I did some research. Much of what I’m covering here comes from the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081218190755/http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/unabomber/documents/affidavit.html">search warrant</a> that the FBI obtained to search Ted Kaczynski’s cabin.</p>
<h3 id="early-life-education-and-academics">Early Life, Education and Academics</h3>
<p>Ted Kaczynski was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1942. The family later moved to the nearby suburb of Evergreen Park. Ted had an <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-ted_add009t20080226125454-photo.html">IQ of 167</a> and skipped the fifth and eleventh grades. He was a shy, geeky kid. He felt isolated from his peers because he was smaller, younger and smarter. He felt pressured by his parents to excel at school. He felt like his achievements became kind of a trophy for the family.</p>
<p>Ted entered Harvard in 1958 at the age of sixteen, on a scholarship. After graduating with a BA in Mathematics, he attended the University of Michigan, where he earned both his Masters and PhD in Mathematics. His doctoral dissertation won an award and was well received. He had articles published in mathematical journals while he pursued his Masters, which is unusual.</p>
<p>In 1967, at the age of 25, he became an assistant professor of Mathematics at UC Berkeley, the youngest person to ever hold such a position. But he taught and published at Berkeley for just two years before he abruptly quit at the end of June in 1969.</p>
<h3 id="the-cabin-in-the-woods">The Cabin in the Woods</h3>
<p>In 1970, he and his brother David bought a 1.4 acre plot of land outside Lincoln, Montana. Each of the brothers put up $1,050 to buy the property. Shortly thereafter, Ted built a small one-room cabin on the land. It measured ten by twelve feet and had no electricity or running water. He would live in this cabin alone, off an on, for nearly 26 years. We know he periodically travelled via Greyhound bus to Chicago, to Salt Lake City, as well as Oakland and Sacramento California. We know this because he placed bombs in these cities, or mailed bombs from them. Imagine Ted Kaczynski riding a Greyhound bus from Montana to Oakland with a homemade bomb in his pack.</p>
<p>In 1972 or 73, he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. He worked for a general contractor there for about six months, before returning to the cabin in Montana.</p>
<p>Ted Kaczynski also lived in Chicago for parts of 1978 and 79. He moved in with his parents, and worked for a company called Foam Cutting Engineers. His father worked there and his brother, David, was a supervisor. He went on a couple of dates with a woman who worked there. After she broke it off, Ted was heartbroken. He wrote an insulting limerick about her and posted copies around the factory. Reports differ as to whether David fired him, or merely delivered the news, but after this incident Ted no longer worked there.</p>
<p>He also worked briefly for a restaurant equipment company, from August or September of 1978 thru the summer of 1979.</p>
<p>He started bombing while he lived Chicago in 1978. His first bomb was left in a parking lot on the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois in May of 1978. His next was left at Northwestern University in May of 1979. His third was mailed from Chicago in November of 1979. According to this <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/26/us/prisoner-of-rage-a-special-report-from-a-child-of-promise-to-the-unabom-suspect.html">article by the New York Times</a>, these first bombs were likely made in shed behind his parent’s home in Lombard, Illinois.</p>
<h3 id="the-murray-experiments-at-harvard">The Murray Experiments at Harvard</h3>
<p>While at Harvard, Ted was recruited into a psychological experiment run by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Murray">Henry A. Murray</a>, a psychologist who worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II. (The OSS was a predecessor to the CIA. )</p>
<p>Participants in the study were told to write an essay about their philosophy of life. They were encouraged to explore their innermost thoughts and desires in the essay. Nothing was off limits, not even sexual fantasies. They were told they would meet with another undergraduate student to debate the essay after it was written, but that’s not what happened.</p>
<p>Instead, the subjects were taken into a dark room with bright lights shining in their eyes. Each was strapped into a chair and had electrodes attached, to record their vital signs. They were facing a one-way mirror. Each was interrogated by a “law school student who had been prepped to tear into the student and to mock and ridicule their ideas and their values,” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unabomber-decoded-did-harvard-study-fuel-rage/">according to Chase</a>. Again <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/">according to Chase</a>, Murray himself described these sessions as “vehement, sweeping, and personally abusive.”</p>
<p>The sessions were filmed thru the mirror, and the students had to come back and review these films <a href="https://byrslf.co/my-brother-the-unabomber-1ea71ea1f7af">weekly</a> for three years. Imagine having to relive such an experience, over and over. And Ted Kaczynski was the youngest subject, just seventeen at the start of the experiment.</p>
<p>The details of the experiment are covered in this <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unabomber-decoded-did-harvard-study-fuel-rage/">CBS News article</a> and this <a href="http://www.radiolab.org/story/91721-oops/">Radiolab episode</a>. Alton Chase is the primary source quoted by both.</p>
<p>What was the point of this immoral experiment? It’s not entirely clear. Probably it was about understanding the extreme stress people go thru during interrogations and how to resist it. The experiment was likely a continuation of the work on stress that Murray did with the OSS during the war.</p>
<p>How much did this contribute to Ted Kaczynski becoming the Unabomber? It’s hard to say.</p>
<p>Most people assume that Kaczynski was crazy because of how he looked when he was arrested. With that wild mane of unkept hair and shaggy beard, he looked every inch the mad bomber. But he wasn’t that kind of crazy. He was a careful, meticulous planner. He was organized and his writing, particularly the manifesto, is scholarly and reasoned, pretty much the opposite of a rant. Many of his bombs were left in public places where they would be discovered. Most of these were disguised to look like everyday objects, or wooden debris. That’s the kind of crazy Ted was: diabolical.</p>
<p>Retired FBI agent Kathleen Puckett, one of the few people to read nearly all of Kaczynski’s writings, thinks skipping grades had more to do with it. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unabomber-decoded-did-harvard-study-fuel-rage/">She says</a>, “Kaczynski wrote that he was a social cripple, that his parents had destroyed his life by moving him two grades, how lonely he felt and how angry he was that he couldn’t relate to people…” Ted never had serious relationship with a woman.</p>
<p>Ted shares this opinion. He was bitter about being forced to skip graded and spend much of his time studying. In his “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm">manifesto</a>”, Kaczynski wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It isn’t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the real world.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is one of several references to young men being forced to study. The passages stand out because they seem rather out of place in what is an otherwise scholarly critique of society after the industrial revolution. The manifesto is formatted like a dissertation, and it reads like one.</p>
<p><a href="https://byrslf.co/my-brother-the-unabomber-1ea71ea1f7af">David Kaczynski says</a> that while Ted never told the family about the experiments, that he became more isolated, withdrawn and defensive while at Harvard.</p>
<p>The targets of his bombs are also telling. His first two bombs were left on college campuses in Chicago and Evanston. He would later target the Mathematics building at UC Berkeley, leaving two bombs in different rooms there. And he mailed a bomb to Dr. James McConnell at the University of Michigan. He targeted two universities in his home town, and every university he attended or worked at <strong>except Harvard</strong>. He targeted nine universities and professors. If he were a lunatic, angered and warped by the experiment, wouldn’t he target Harvard?</p>
<p>It’s probably impossible to know how much of an effect the experiment had on Ted Kaczynski and how it affected him. It certainly did not make him feel less isolated.</p>
<h3 id="the-unabomber">The Unabomber</h3>
<p>Between May 26, 1978 and April 24, 1995, over a period of seventeen years, Ted Kaczynski built sixteen bombs. Some were mailed, others were placed in locations where they would be easily discovered. They killed three people and injured 23 others.</p>
<p>Kaczynski was meticulous. He went to great lengths to avoid leaving any clues to his identity. His bombs were essentially made out of junk: bits of pipe, batteries, wire, rubber bands, nails, screws, staples and various kinds of tape. Many of the devices were packed in hand-built wooden boxes that were assembled using glue made from melted deer hooves. No way to trace the components. He pulled the plastic covers off batteries to remove any lot numbers or other identifying information. He cut the manufacturer’s name off the mailing labels affixed to the packages. No fingerprints were discovered on any of the explosive devices, nor any of the letters he mailed as “FC”, the alias he used.</p>
<h3 id="the-manifesto--other-writings">The Manifesto & Other Writings</h3>
<p>On June 24, 1993, fifteen years after his first bombing, Kaczynski sent a letter to Warren Hoge, Assistant Managing Editor of The New York Times. It was mailed from Sacramento on the same day as his thirteenth and fourteenth bombs. The letter claimed to be from an anarchist group calling themselves “FC”. It was the first letter to use this alias. It contained “an identifying number that will ensure the authenticity of any future communication from us…,” 553-25-4394. Subsequent letters reference this number. He appears to be opening a new front in his war. He begins to use the media to reach the public. He is trying to persuade as well as kill.</p>
<p>The letter said that the FBI was aware of “the group’s” identity. The initials “FC” were found stamped on bomb components in many of his bombs. He was conducting experiments back in Montana. He knew these components would survive the explosions and that FBI had likely found the initials “FC” in the remains of at least some of his bombs.</p>
<p>By 1995 he was more of letter writer than bomber. Many of the letters sent as “FC” lay the groundwork for publishing his manifesto. After being so careful not to leave any clues that could be traced back to him, the Unabomber starts a letter writing campaign to get his manifesto published. Ultimately, this led to his arrest.</p>
<p>The so-called <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/manifesto.text.htm">manifesto</a> is a 35,000 word essay entitled “Industrial Society and Its Future” that runs to approximately 65 single-spaced, typed pages. It was eventually published by the Washington Post. It is a dense, readable, scholarly critique of society and the perils of technology.</p>
<p>According to the search warrant, envelopes containing the manifesto were postmarked June 24, 1995 and had been mailed from San Francisco, California. They arrived at The Washington Post on June 27 and at The New York Times on June 28.</p>
<p>In addition to the manifesto, each envelope contained a letter outlining a <em>bargain</em>. If the manuscript were published according to the conditions specified, all terrorist activities would cease. The letter distinguishes between <em>terrorism</em> (violence directed at people) from <em>sabotage</em> (violence against property). The former would stop, but the latter would continue. The details of this bargain come from a second letter sent to Warren Hoge at The New York Times in April of 1995.</p>
<p>Kaczynski also sent a copy of his manifesto to Penthouse Magazine. It was mailed at the same time as the copies sent to the Post and the Times, and had the same San Francisco postmark. Why send it to Penthouse? According to the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081218190755/http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/unabomber/documents/affidavit.html">search warrant</a>, the magazine had earlier offered “to publish a manuscript from FC” in exchange for the group’s promise to “desist from terrorism”.</p>
<p>There are a couple of odd things here. Apparently Penthouse Magazine came up with the idea to publish something in exchange for a stop to the bombings. Also, the Unabomber read Penthouse? How else would he know about the offer? Maybe the search warrant has this wrong, but it’s still odd.</p>
<p>And the conditions of the bargain were different if Penthouse was the only outlet to publish the manuscript. In this case, “the group” would send one additional bomb, “intended to kill, AFTER our manuscript has been published.” This was framed as incentive to get the manifesto published in the Times or the Post.</p>
<p>Altogether “FC” sent 11 letters, beginning with the one sent to the Times on June 24, 1993 and ending with a set of six letters mailed on June 24, 1995. This last set included the various copies of the manifesto, as well as a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, one to the Scientific American and another sent to Dr. Tom Tyler of the Social Psychology Group at University of California, Berkeley. This letter to Dr. Tyler also contained a copy of the manifesto. The letter to the the San Francisco Chronicle contained a threat to blow up an airplane out of LAX in the next six days. This threat was dubbed a “prank” in the letter that was sent to the Times. Both letters were mailed on the same day, and arrived on successive days to the Chronicle and then to the Times.</p>
<p>Kaczynski sent three other letters to individuals, all sent on April 20, 1995. Nearly identical letters were sent to Dr. Phillip A. Sharp and Dr. Richard J. Roberts, warning that “It would be beneficial to your health to stop your research in genetics.” Dr Sharp was in the Biology Department at M.I.T. and Dr. Roberts worked at New England Biolabs in Beverly, Massachusetts. This is a pretty pure form or terrorism, a letter from a known bomber with a mob-style veiled threat: “Be a shame if something happened to you.”</p>
<p>The last letter, sent to Dr. David Gelernter, may be the most disturbing. Dr. Gelernter was the victim of one of Kaczynski’s last bombs, and the letter basically mocks him for opening a package from an unknown source. The bomb nearly killed him. It damaged his right eye and cost him the use of his right hand. It appears that Kaczynski was trying to get the Dr. Gelernter to retire. It did not work.</p>
<h3 id="recognition--capture">Recognition & Capture</h3>
<p>In the TV show, <a href="https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/manhunt/s01/">Manhunt: Unabomber</a>, FBI special agent James R. Fitzgerald, has to convince David Kaczynski to turn his brother in. Agent Fitzgerald also has to convince his superiors to publish the manifesto. Lastly, he does much of the linguistic work comparing the Unabomber’s letters to those of Ted Kaczynski, which is a major focus of the search warrant.</p>
<p><img class="full-width" src="/img/based-on-true-events.png" alt="Based on true events, set in a font that looks like a photocopy of a typewriter" /></p>
<p>In reality, things were pretty different. The first person to strongly suspect that Ted was the Unabomber was Linda Patrik, David Kaczynski’s wife.</p>
<p>Linda never met Ted. She knew him only from the letters he wrote and from David’s stories. But she began to suspect that Ted might be the Unabomber in the summer of 1995, when the FBI began to release information to the public. This was before the manifesto was published in September of 1995.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://muse.union.edu/newsarchives/1998/07/01/a-conversation-with-linda-e-patrik/">an article published on the Union College website</a>, she says that when she read the manifesto, “I knew as soon as I saw it that it was Ted who had written it.” David, however, was not yet convinced.</p>
<p>After reading the manifesto, David started looking at letters Ted had written. In one, the phrase “cool-headed logician” appears. This phase also appears in the manifesto. Additionally, he found a letter written in approximately 1971 that had substantially the same anti-technology message as the manifesto. Together, they spent about a month comparing Ted’s letter to the manifesto. David was distraught. To say nothing might endanger innocent lives. But if he told the authorities about his concerns, he was afraid Ted would be killed either during his arrest or by the government seeking the death penalty.</p>
<p>They contacted Susan Swanson, a close childhood friend of Linda’s, who now worked as a private investigator. Without mentioning the Unabomber, they asked her how to analyze someone’s writing. Susan put them in touch with Clint Van Zandt, a retired FBI agent and criminal profiler who specialized in document comparisons.</p>
<p>They gave Van Zandt the 1971 letter and the manifesto. He concluded that there was a 40 to 60% chance that the same person had written both. They had agreed that anything over 25% would be enough to convince them. They contacted the FBI thru a lawyer and shared their belief that Ted Kaczynski was the Unabomber.</p>
<p>They were supposed to remain confidential, but news that David had turned in his brother leaked in early April of 1996, when Ted was arrested and the cabin searched.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081218190755/http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/unabomber/documents/affidavit.html">search warrant</a> for Ted Kaczynski’s cabin in Montana is pretty fascinating. It outlines a chronology of events, listing all the bombs and the letters sent by “FC”. It argues that the typewriter used to address the mailing labels on several bombs is the same typewriter used to type the letters and the manifesto. The next section of the warrant establishes how David Kaczynski came to believe that his brother was the Unabomber. David makes geographic connections between the bombs and places Ted lived. It also provides a detailed look at the similarities between the 1971 letter and the manifesto, the same evidence that convinced David of his brother’s guilt.</p>
<p>A mountain of evidence against Ted Kaczynski was found in the the cabin: bomb components, hand-written journals detailing bomb-making experiments, a live bomb and the original typed manuscript of the manifesto.</p>
<h3 id="chronology-of-bombs">Chronology of Bombs</h3>
<p><strong>Bomb #1 May 26, 1978 - Chicago, Illinois</strong><br />
This bomb was hand delivered. It was left at the Chicago Campus of the University of Illinois in the Engineering Building parking lot. It had a return address of Professor Buckley Crist at
Northwestern University (NWU) in Evanston, Illinois. It was returned to the Professor Crist, who was suspicious because he hadn’t sent it. He gave it to NWU Public Safety and an officer was slightly injured when opening the package. The officer was lucky to escape serious injury.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #2 May 9, 1979 - Evanston, Illinois</strong><br />
This bomb was also hand delivered. It was left in room 2424 of the Technical Building of NWU in Evanston. John Harris, a member of the Civil Engineering Department, opened the cigar box containing the bomb. It exploded, inflicting numerous lacerations and burns to Harris, altho <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski">Wikipedia</a> describes the injuries as minor.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #3 November 15. 1979 - Chicago, Illinois</strong><br />
Mailed from Chicago, this device had a crude altimeter as a trigger. It exploded on board an American Airlines Boeing 727, carrying both mail and passengers. Eighteen people were treated for smoke inhalation, but there were no serious injuries.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #4 June 10, 1980 - Lake Forrest, Illinois</strong><br />
This bomb was mailed to the President of United Airlines, Percy Wood. This one is diabolical. A letter was sent a letter to Mr. Wood, purportedly from one Enoch Fischer. The fictional Mr. Fisher said he would be sending a book shortly, “Ice Brothers”
by Sloan Wilson, because the book had “great social significance.” A few days later, on June 10, the bomb arrived in a hollowed out copy of the book. Mr. Wood was seriously injured, with lacerations to his face and leg, when he opened it. The device contained a small metal tag stamped with the initials “FC”. It was the first bomb to contain these initials.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #5 October 8, 1981 - Salt Lake City, Utah</strong><br />
The bomb was left in the Bennion Hall Business Building on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. A student discovered the package and alerted the campus police. The campus police, worried it might be bomb, brought in the Salt Lake City Police. Their bomb squad x-rayed the package, confirmed it was a bomb, and disabled it with a small explosive charge. The bomb also contained a metal tag stamped with the initials “FC”.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #6 May 5, 1982 - Nashville, Tennessee</strong><br />
This bomb was mailed from the BYU campus post office in Provo, Utah. It was addressed to Professor Patrick C. Fischer at Pennsylvania State University. It was forwarded by a secretary there to Vanderbilt University, where Fisher then worked. He had been the chair of the Computer Science department since 1980. The professor was out of the country and it was opened by his secretary, Janet Smith. The device exploded inflicting serious injuries to her face and arms. It contained a metal tag stamped with the initials “FC”.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #7 July 2, 1982 - Berkeley, California</strong><br />
The bomb was left in Room 411 of the Cory Hall Mathematics Building on the campus of University of California at Berkeley. Professor Diogenes Angelakos discovered the device which exploded when he attempted to pick it up. He suffered serious
injuries to his right hand, arm, and face. This bomb contained a note with the typed message, “Wu— It works! I told you it would. —RV”. This was apparently a false clue, a red herring, left to confuse investigators.</p>
<p>The first seven bombs used smokeless powder, a type of gun powder, as the explosive. All but the first two had nails, screws or staples added to cause addition damage when the bomb exploded.</p>
<p>Beginning with the eighth bomb, Kaczynski switches to using more powerful explosive compounds. The bombs are also designed to produce more shrapnel.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #8 May 15, 1985 - Berkeley, California</strong><br />
Another diabolical one, this bomb was left in Room 264 of the Cory Hall Computer Science Building on the Berkeley Campus. This device looked like a three ring binder resting on a plastic file box. It was discovered by Air Force Captain John Hauser and it exploded when he opened the binder to look inside. Captain Hauser lost four fingers from his right hand and some vision in his left eye. The bomb had the initials “FC” stamped into a plug sealing the pipe that contained the explosives.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #9 June 13, 1985 - Auburn, Washington</strong><br />
This bomb was mailed from Oakland California to the Boeing Aircraft Company, Fabrication Division in Auburn Washington. The bomb was not addressed to anyone so it sat for a while in the mail room. It was eventually, “partially opened by mail room employees who discovered the enclosed device,” according to the search warrant. I’m not sure what “partially opened” means, but the bomb did not explode. The bomb had the initials “FC” stamped into both plugs sealing the pipe containing the explosives.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #10 November 15, 1985 - Ann Arbor, Michigan</strong><br />
This bomb was mailed from Salt Lake City, Utah. It was addressed Dr. James V. McConnell at his home in Ann Arbor. Dr. McConnell was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. The bomb was contained in a hollowed out ream of paper, and had an accompanying letter explaining that it was a manuscript for review. It was opened by Nick Suino, an assistant to Dr. McConnell. The bomb exploded injuring both Suino and McConnell. Suino suffered burns and shrapnel wounds to his arms and abdomen. McConnell suffered damage to his ear drum, resulting in temporary hearing loss. The bomb had the initials “FC” stamped into one of the plugs sealing the pipe containing the explosives.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #11 December 11, 1985 - Sacramento, California</strong><br />
This bomb was left outside the back door of Rentech Computer Rental Company in Sacramento, California. It was disguised to look like a block of wood, with nails protruding from the ends. The bomb had the initials “FC” stamped into one of the plugs sealing a pipe containing the explosives. The bomb exploded when the owner of the shop, Hugh Scrutton, attempted to move it. Mr Scrutton was killed by the explosion. He was the first person killed by the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #12 February 20, 1987 - Salt Lake City, Utah</strong><br />
This bomb was left in the parking lot of CAAMS, Inc, a computer store in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was disguised to look like two two-by-fours nailed together, with nails protruding from them. Gary Wright, the owner of the business, noticed the device in the parking lot. Afraid someone would run over it, he got out to move the device. It exploded, lacerating his arms, face and legs. The bomb had the initials “FC” stamped into one of the plugs sealing a pipe containing the explosive.</p>
<p>A woman who worked for the company saw a man pull the device out of bag and leave it in the parking lot. As he left, the man saw her in the window. She became distracted by a telephone call or a conversation with a coworker and forgot about the man and the strange object until the explosion. She was gave the police a description that is the source of the infamous sketch with the hoodie and the aviator sunglasses.</p>
<p>Perhaps spooked by being seen, the Unabomber took a six year break. His next bomb wasn’t mailed until 1993.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #13 June 22, 1993 - Tiburon, California</strong><br />
This bomb was mailed to Dr. Charles Epstein at his home in Tiburon, California. He was a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School. The bomb was mailed from Sacramento, California. It was sent in a padded envelope which contained a small box made of redwood. It exploded when the envelope was opened and Dr. Epstein was seriously injured. He had damage to both eardrums and lost three fingers.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #14 June 24, 1993 - New Haven, Connecticut</strong><br />
This bomb was identical to bomb #13. Both bombs were mailed from Sacramento, California on June 18, 1993. This one was addressed to Dr. David Gelernter at his office in the Computer Science Department of Yale University. It exploded when he opened the package on the morning of June 24, 1993. He sustained serious burns, shrapnel wounds, damage to his right eye and lost the use of his right hand.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #15 December 10. 1994 - North Caldwell, New Jersey</strong> <br />
This bomb was mailed to Thomas Mosser at his home in North Caldwell, New Jersey, from San Francisco, California. Mosser was killed when he opened the package. His wife and infant daughter were in a nearby room and escaped injury because they were protected from the blast by a large stone fireplace.</p>
<p>The search warrant describes the bomb this way:
“Double edged razor blades and numerous paneling nails, approximately 1" in length, were placed in the explosive device for additional shrapnel. It was designed to function as an anti-personnel device.”</p>
<p>The Unabomber explained in a letter sent to the New York Times, that Mosser was targeted because he handled PR for the Exxon Valdez incident. This is incorrect. Mosser and his company did not have any connection with Exxon Valdez.</p>
<p><strong>Bomb #16 April 24, 1995 - Sacramento. California</strong><br />
This bomb was mailed from Oakland, California to William Dennison, at the offices of the Timber Association of California, in Sacramento. The trade group had changed its name to the California Forestry Association several years earlier, but was still at the same address. William Dennison was president and CEO of the association until 1994, when he was replaced by Gilbert B. Murray. Murray opened the package and was killed in the blast that knocked doors off their hinges and shattered glass partitions in the office.</p>
<h3 id="links--references">Links & References</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski">The Wikipedia entry for Ted Kaczynski</a></li>
<li><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20081218190755/http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/unabomber/documents/affidavit.html">The FBI search warrant to search Ted Kaczynski’s cabin outside Lincoln, Montana</a></li>
<li>An article by Alton Chase in The Atlantic, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard-and-the-making-of-the-unabomber/378239/">Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber</a></li>
<li>An article from CBS News, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/unabomber-decoded-did-harvard-study-fuel-rage/">Unabomber Decoded</a> examining the Murray Experiments at Harvard</li>
<li><a href="https://byrslf.co/my-brother-the-unabomber-1ea71ea1f7af">An interview with David Kaczynski and his wife Linda Patrik</a></li>
<li><a href="https://muse.union.edu/newsarchives/1998/07/01/a-conversation-with-linda-e-patrik/">An interview with Linda Patrik, conducted by Union College</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/26/us/prisoner-of-rage-a-special-report-from-a-child-of-promise-to-the-unabom-suspect.html">A long article from the New York Times about Ted Kaczynski</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2017/08/22/545168709/fbi-profiler-says-linguistic-work-was-pivotal-in-capture-of-unabomber?showDate=2017-08-22">A Fresh Air interview with retired FBI agent and profiler, James R. Fitzgerald</a></li>
</ul>
Presenting Multiple Design Optionshttp://infomongo.com/posts/presenting-mulitple-design-options/2017-09-21T00:00:00+00:00<div class="main wide">
<img src="/img/many-doors.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Hallway showing multiple doors" />
</div>
<p>Interaction design begins with research. <strong>You need to understand who is going to use the product and what they want to accomplish.</strong> You need to understand their background. What applications they use and like. How they currently solve this problem, the one that your product solves more completely. What are the broad demographics of these users? How comfortable are they with technology?</p>
<p>You also need to understand the technical limitations and the business goals of the project, but user research makes up the bulk of this initial phase.</p>
<h3 id="developing-options">Developing Options</h3>
<p>After the initial research is complete, you start exploring different solutions. This means quickly generating different approaches, different ways to solve the basic problem. Many of these will be dead ends. Their flaws will outweigh the benefits. That particular dog just won’t hunt.</p>
<p>Eventually you will find a number of approaches that have legs. These are the ones you explore in more detail, that you refine and imagine more completely.</p>
<p>A common mistake junior designers make is to focus on a single solution. After a brief outlining the problem, they come back with a detailed set of drawings ‘exploring’ a single solution. They ‘fall in love’ too early and fail to examine useful alternatives.</p>
<p>Once I have an initial set of options, I usually do a second round of research. I think about apps that have similar interactions and I examine how they work in detail. I’m looking for UX patterns I can adapt. This kind of copying is as common as dirt, but you have to be careful that the pattern you are borrowing makes sense. It has to be a good fit for your users. And it has to make sense for the app in question. It’s no use following a trend that doesn’t work well in context. Done poorly, this kind of copying can set the wrong expectations or saddle you with unneeded constraints. Done well, it can make the app easier to learn by leveraging users’ familiarity with similar apps.</p>
<h3 id="how-many-should-you-show">How Many Should You Show?</h3>
<p>Any reasonably experienced designer is going to have come up multiple design approaches. When it comes time to review these with the client or product team, how many should you show?</p>
<p><a href="https://blog.prototypr.io/presenting-multiple-design-options-to-your-clients-just-dont-5818bb29b6fc">Some designers</a> advocate showing only a <a href="https://worthwhile.com/blog/2013/11/20/presenting-design-clients/">single option</a> to clients. The crux of this argument is that the client hired you, the design professional, to come up with a solution. You are the expert, so you should pick the design.</p>
<p>If a review is primarily about the visual design, then I understand why this might be preferable. Taste plays a large role in this kind of design. In effect, the client is renting the designer’s taste, and they should present the option they believe is best.</p>
<p>The motivation for showing a single option is to avoid a common pitfall of design reviews. When you show multiple options, the most natural thing in the world is for the client to want to combine elements from the various options. “I like the green from option A, but the fonts and the layout option B.” Only showing a single design avoids this and a whole host of related issues.</p>
<p>However, when designing an application, there are two inter-related things both loosely called design. There are aspects about how the interface looks, and these are largely emotional. And there are aspects about how it works, that are more rational. It’s more difficult to have a productive discussion about emotional design. When talking how something works, it’s much easier to explain your design choices. Of course, this distinction isn’t binary. Many elements of a design, like animations, affect both the emotional feel and the more rational, how-it-works side.</p>
<p>When the design review is focused on how an app works, showing multiple options is often helpful and productive. One approach might be geared to new users, to help them learn how the app works and what options are available. Another might be focused on productivity. It might be more difficult to learn, but more powerful once learned.</p>
<p>When presenting these options, you discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each design. You will often have a productive discussion with stakeholders. You learn what they care about and where their priorities lay. They learn about the trade-offs involved and how different users may have different reactions to the same design. These conversations improve the design because the whole team ends up understanding the problem better.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When the design review is focused on how an app works, showing multiple options is often helpful and productive.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, you will often get feedback wanting to combine elements from the various options presented, the same as with any design. Some of these combinations may be worth exploring. Some will be dead on arrival.</p>
<p>Suppose one design presents a small list of choices in a menu, and the client wants to use this menu in another design. This might be straight forward or it may be impractical. The menu may be small in one case, because a previous action has limited the available choices to 4 or 5 items. When applied to a different design, the menu might have many more options. If the menu would have 20 or 100 items, it will be much harder to use.</p>
<p>No matter what the feedback is, don’t take it as an order. Hopefully, <a href="http://muledesign.com/2017/05/designing-for-better-feedback">you have set the stage for getting good feedback</a> during the design review. Rather than taking the feedback at face value, you want to understand motivation behind it and you want to tie it back to the design goals. So ask follow up questions, like:</p>
<p><em>“Why do you want to move the buttons to the left?”<br />
“What problem does moving them solve?<br />
“How does this help the user?”</em></p>
<!-- ### Design is Rational -->
<blockquote>
<p>A good designer can explain the choices they make.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A good designer can explain the choices they make, even when discussing the more emotional side of the design. The vast majority of the time, a good designer will have an objective reason to back up their decisions. They will have a convincing story about the choices they made.</p>
<p>A really good designer will explain all of this proactively, during the design review. This is called selling the design.</p>
Arches National Parkhttp://infomongo.com/posts/arches-national-park/2017-09-07T00:00:00+00:00<div class="main wide">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-delicate-1-thumbs-up.jpg" alt="Delicate arch in background, in foreground a young man gives two thumbs up." />
</div>
<p>Arches is an amazingly beautiful park. It’s so gorgeous you almost get “beautiful desert landscape” fatigue.</p>
<p>It’s located just north of Moab, UT. You enter the park at the south end from U.S. Highway 191. The main road runs from the Visitor Center in the south to the Devils Garden Trailhead at the north end of the park.</p>
<p>About midway thru, there’s a road leading to the Windows Section. This is the densest collection of arches in the park, with short, easy trails connecting them.</p>
<p>A couple miles further north is the road leading to Wolf Ranch and Delicate Arch.</p>
<p>You can download a <a href="https://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/upload/ARCHmap.pdf">Park Map</a> or the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/upload/ARCHnews2017_v2_web.pdf">Visitor Guide</a> from the National Park Service <a href="https://www.nps.gov/arch/">site for the park</a>.</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-park-ave-1.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<h2 id="park-avenue">Park Avenue</h2>
<p>Just north of the Visitor Center is the Park Avenue trailhead. I overhead a ranger describe it as a mini Monument Valley, which seems just about right. The trail is fairly easy, but even if you don’t hike it, you can get some beautiful photos.</p>
<div class="margin-bottom">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-park-ave-2.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="margin-bottom">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-park-ave-3.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-tower-of-babel.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">The Tower of Babel, this formation is about 350 feet tall. Just massive. </p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-balancing-rock.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">Balanced Rock, right before the turn-off to the Windows</p>
<h2 id="the-windows">The Windows</h2>
<p>It’s arch-a-palooza here with short, easy hikes to the arches. It’s named for two large arches the North and South Windows.</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-north-window.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">North Window</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-under-north-window.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">Under the North Window, looking up at the ginormous crack.</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-south-window.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">South Window</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-turret-arch.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">Turret Arch</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-turret-arch-close-up.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">Turret Arch, up close</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-turret-arty.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">South Window viewed thru Turret Arch. Oooh, arty.</p>
<p>This is approximately half of the arches here. Seriously. I hit this last. I was dog tired, got sunscreen and sweat in my eye, and it was about 102°, so I didn’t walk over to the other arches. Fair warning, this is the one section that even the people who won’t get out of their cars will see. Expect crowds of possibly annoying humans. Your mileage may vary.</p>
<h2 id="delicate-arch">Delicate Arch</h2>
<p>So they got the name of this one wrong, it’s clearly License Plate Arch. There are two ways to see this one. The easy way involves a short hike over flat ground, but you end up viewing it from a distance. The hard way is a 3 mile round trip, about half of which is up a steeply sloping pitch of rock. But the hard ways pays off, as you get to stand under the arch. Take plenty of water and do this hike as early in the day as you can.</p>
<div class="margin-bottom">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-delicate-1.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-delicate-2.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">The top half of the hike is over “slick rock,” like what you see in the foreground. Cool, right?</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-delicate-3.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p>There can be a long line to get out under the arch, as people coordinate with other groups to take their picture. Or if you are anti-social, like me, you can just quickly dart out there and take some photos. Stink-eye makes you stronger.</p>
<h2 id="devils-garden-trailhead">Devil’s Garden Trailhead</h2>
<p>Lots of arches here too, but the hikes are longer and more difficult. The hike to Landscape Arch is pretty flat and easy, tho. It’s about a mile and half round trip.</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-landscape-1.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p class="caption">Landscape Arch</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-landscape-2.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p>Arguably, this is the delicate arch. On September 1, 1991, while people were standing under it, a 60-foot slab of rock broke off. Altogether 180 tons of rock splintered off the arch. Nobody got hurt because the collapse was preceded by loud cracking and popping noises that warned people to, you know, run for their lives. They don’t let you go under this one anymore.</p>
<div class="">
<img class="full-width" src="/img/arches-rock-fin.jpg" alt="" />
</div>
<p>There are a lot of rock fins in the area, too. I didn’t hike to the other arches out here. Can’t see it all in one day.</p>
Simplify Forms to Increase Conversion Rateshttp://infomongo.com/posts/simplify-forms-to-increase-conversion/2017-08-16T00:00:00+00:00<p>At <a href="http://moonsault.co">Moonsault</a> we have worked on several landing page / lead generation projects this year. And one thing keeps coming up. Clients want to add a whole bunch of fields to their lead generation forms. Which is bad for conversion.</p>
<p>The canonical conversion reference seems to be <a href="https://www.quicksprout.com/2013/01/31/how-to-optimize-contact-forms-for-conversions/">this post at Quick Sprout</a> by <a href="http://neilpatel.com/blog/">Neil Patel</a>. It gets linked to frequently in the context of form conversion and the number of fields.</p>
<p>I’m not sure this should be the canonical reference, since it’s based on a single study, an anecdote really. <em>And if you follow that link, be ready to get assaulted by some shady up-sell tactics</em>.</p>
<p><img src="/img/contact-cory-form.jpg" class="full-width" alt="A form with a dozens of controls." /></p>
<p class="caption">This monstrosity is part of the contact form for emailing my senator.</p>
<p>His contact form initially had four fields: name, email, URL and revenue. He removed one field, revenue, and increased conversion by <strong>26%</strong>.</p>
<p>Fewer fields are better because it’s less work to submit the form. But there also a <a href="https://www.sensible.com/dmmt.html">Don’t Make Me Think</a> aspect to this story. Neil stopped asking the one question that users had to think about to answer. All the other fields could be filled in without much thought. But asking about revenue makes you wonder, “Why are they asking about revenue?” and probably also “Do I want to answer this question?” Even if you are OK sharing the information, you’d likely have to ask yourself “What is my revenue, anyway?” This requires a lot more cognitive work than the name field does.</p>
<p><strong>That’s the main takeaway from this essay</strong>. To improve form conversion, reduce the cognitive work needed to complete the form. Reducing the number of fields is a great way to do this. But it is not the only way.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To improve form conversion, reduce the cognitive work needed to complete the form.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There are <a href="https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/how-to-optimize-contact-forms/">many</a> <a href="https://conversionxl.com/reduce-form-fields/">other</a> <a href="https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/150450955-how-many-form-fields.html">posts</a> that <a href="https://99robots.com/improve-contact-form-conversion-rate/">talk</a> about the number of form fields. Some of these contain contradictory advice. Many are drawn from very little data.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.formstack.com/docs/Formstack-2014-Form-Conversion-Report.pdf">PDF from FormStack</a> has a lot of good information, though. Particularly the part about how different kinds of forms, surveys, contact, payment and so on, have different numbers of fields on average and different conversion rates.</p>
<h3 id="ux-research-on-form-design">UX Research on Form Design</h3>
<p>My background is in UX, so I tend to view form conversion through that lens. And UX folks have been studying forms for a long time.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/web-form-design/">This article from the Nielsen/Norman Group</a>, run by design legends Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman, summarizes their current recommendations:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p><strong>Keep forms short</strong>. Reducing the number of fields increases the conversion rate.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Labels should be close to the fields they describe</strong>. Ideally immediately above the field.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Use a single column layout</strong>, with a separate row for each field.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Present fields and options in a logical sequence</strong>. Group related fields, like credit card number, expiration date and security code. For multiple choice options, present the most commonly used choices first. If you are asking for a country and most of your users are in the U.S. show “United States” at or near the top of the list, instead of alphabetically with the U’s.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Avoid placeholder text</strong>. Nielsen/Norman have a <a href="https://www.nngroup.com/articles/form-design-placeholders/">whole article about this</a>. Using placeholder text instead of field labels has a host of problems. Using it with field labels also hurts usability by making it harder to tell which fields have been filled out.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Make fields the ‘right’ size and use the correct inputs</strong>. Text fields should be about the size of the expected input. Use radio buttons rather than drop-down menus if there are two to three options. Radio buttons operate with a single click or tap and all options are visible.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Distinguish between optional and required fields</strong>. Eliminate as many optional fields as you can, and label any that remain.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Explain any input or formatting rules</strong>. Don’t make users guess about obscure password rules, tell them the required characters up front before the error. Likewise, either allow users to enter phone numbers how they like (using or omitting dashes and parentheses) or explain clearly how they must be entered. Better yet, use an <strong>input mask</strong>, to guide user input, more on those below.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Don’t use a reset or clear button</strong>. Providing a simple one-click way to empty all the form fields is a terrible idea. People will hurt themselves.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Make error messages clear and highly noticeable</strong>. Don’t rely on color alone and don’t be subtle.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>All of these guidelines will affect form conversion rates. The main thing to remember when designing forms is that <strong>people don’t like filling out forms</strong>. The longer and more complicated a form looks, the less engaging it will be.</p>
<h3 id="alternative-controls">Alternative Controls</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.lukew.com">Luke Wroblewski</a> is a heavyweight in UX circles. He literally wrote the book on <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0018S232Q/ref=ase_lukewinterfac-20/">Web Form Design</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1950">Luke’s post on avoiding drop-downs</a> in mobile forms has some great ideas for making forms shorter and less complex. Luke shows how using alternative controls, like steppers, segmented controls and switches makes forms easier to use.</p>
<h4>Steppers</h4>
<p><img src="/img/stepper-1.png" class="no-border center" alt="plus and minus buttons increment field value" />
<img src="/img/stepper-2.png" class="no-border center" alt="" /></p>
<h4>Segmented Control</h4>
<p><img src="/img/segmented-control.png" class="no-border center" style="margin-top:10px;" alt="Group of buttons, Coach, Business and First. Business is selected." /><br /><br /></p>
<h4>Switch</h4>
<p><img src="/img/switch.png" class="no-border center" style="margin-top:10px;" alt="iOS style on/off switch" /><br /></p>
<h3 id="input-masks">Input Masks</h3>
<p>Luke also writes about <a href="https://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?756">using input masks</a> to help guide the user when entering dates, phone numbers or other data with formatting rules.</p>
<p>Input masks don’t affect the initial display of the field.</p>
<p><img src="/img/input-mask-1.png" class="no-border" alt="Phone number field, empty" />
<br /></p>
<p>When you click on the field and start typing, the mask adds the formatting automatically.</p>
<p><img src="/img/input-mask-2.png" class="no-border" alt="When actived, parenthesis and dash are added to field, so that it looks like a phone number." /></p>
<p>Not only do they help people enter the data, input masks also prevent people from entering characters that are not allowed. They aid in data validation and prevent a possible source of error.</p>
<h3 id="appropriate-virtual-keyboards">Appropriate (Virtual) Keyboards</h3>
<p>Another way to prevent errors, at least on mobile devices, is to show the right virtual keyboard. If you are asking for a number (a phone number, a credit card number or currency) you can display a keyboard that contains only numbers. This prevents errors and provides larger tap targets, making the form easier to use.</p>
<p>For example, this code…</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><input type="number" name="phone">
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>…triggers this keyboard.</p>
<p><img src="/img/keyboard-number.png" class="retina" width="320" alt="Standard mobile keyboard, with number keys in first row, followed by punctuation and other symbols." /></p>
<p>This is a number keyboard, but it’s not the best number keyboard available. Both iOS and Android provide a numeric keyboard that has larger keys and no symbols.</p>
<p>The following code will trigger a more usable keyboard.</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><input type="tel" name="phone">
</code></pre></div></div>
<p><img src="/img/keyboard-tel.png" width="320" class="retina" alt="Telephone keyboard, with the numbers laid out in a 3 by 3 grid." /></p>
<p>Note that there aren’t keys to enter a decimal point or a negative number.</p>
<p>On iOS devices, you can also use this code.</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><input type="number" pattern="\d*" name="phone">
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>You can also use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">pattern="[0-9]*"</code> but this only works on iOS devices. Use <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">type=tel</code> if you want s solution that works on both Android and Apple devices.</p>
<h3 id="autocomplete">Autocomplete</h3>
<p>UX Booth has <a href="http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/the-new-rules-of-form-design/">a good article about form design</a> that covers input masks, placeholder text and triggering the right keyboard. It also covers a tip for simplifying the collection of addresses that we have been using at Moonsault.</p>
<p>By using the Google Maps API, you can collect an address in a single field by using <a href="https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-autocomplete">Place Autocomplete</a>.</p>
<p>The address field is a standard text field, but when the user starts typing an autocomplete menu is attached.</p>
<p><img src="/img/address-2.png" class="no-border shrink" alt="Autocomplete menu appended to botton of field, offereing address matching what the user entered." /></p>
<p>When the user makes a selection you get back the component parts of the location they chose: the street address, city, state, zip (or postal) code and country. You can add these to hidden fields in your form.</p>
<p>As the UX Booth article points out, the Google Maps API does not support unit numbers. So if you are using this in a place where you need to the address exactly right, like a shipping address, you may want to have the location populate visible fields, so that the user can correct or append a unit number. See an example of this in <a href="https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-autocomplete-addressform">Google’s API documentation</a>.</p>
<h3 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h3>
<p>The best way to improve form conversion is to make the form as simple as possible. You should reduce the number of fields to the bare minimum. Remember that some questions require more work to answer, and that our real goal is to make the form as easy to fill out as possible. Choosing the right controls simplifies the form and makes it easier to use, as do input masks. Help the user by triggering the right keyboard and by offering autocomplete where possible.</p>
<p>One last tip, if you are asking for a name use a single <strong>name</strong> field instead of separate <strong>first</strong> and <strong>last name</strong> fields. A single field is easier to work with and there are many people with names that can’t easily be spilt into first and last names, like: Yao Bing Chong and David H. Miller Jr.</p>
Proposal for a More Rational Calendarhttp://infomongo.com/posts/proposal-for-a-saner-calendar/2017-07-31T00:00:00+00:00<p>What is your first memory of the metric system? I remember learning about it in elementary school. It struck me that the units for measuring distance —centimeters, meters, kilometers— just made much better sense than the Imperial system, with 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, and 5280 feet to a mile. Our system suddenly seemed so arbitrary compared to the base 10 rationality of the metric system.</p>
<p>OK, so consider our calendar. “Thirty days has September, April, June and November.” Weeks have 7 days, but months have 30 or 31. Except for that odd duck February, which has either 28 or 29. It’s just arbitrary. Holidays like the fourth of July and Christmas float around the week, sometimes landing on a Tuesday, sometimes a Saturday.</p>
<p><img src="/img/calendar-closeup.jpg" class="full-width" alt="" /></p>
<h3 id="a-proposal">A Proposal</h3>
<p>Switch to a calendar with, basically, thirteen months, each with 28 days.</p>
<h4 id="13--28--364-days">13 × 28 = 364 days</h4>
<p>This leaves the year short by one day on regular years, two days on leap years. To fix this, we’ll add the extra days to a new fourteenth month at the end of the year, called “Non.” In normal years, Non has a single day called “Freeday.” In leap years, Freeday is followed by “Leapday.” These are holidays, so only people in the service industry have to work. <em>(I kid, but please tip your servers.)</em></p>
<p>Days in the month of Non are not part of any week. They are a kind of padding so that each 28 day month begins on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday.</p>
<p><img src="/img/calendar-diagram.png" class="full-width" alt="" /></p>
<p>As a result, the year always starts on Sunday. This keeps the calendar fixed from year to year. Holidays no longer float from one day of the week to the next and you could use the same printed calendar every year.</p>
<p>There are thirteen 28 day months, and we need to figure out what to call them. I had originally thought it would be best to keep the current month names and just add a new one at the end. But this gets confusing since the months are shorter and they get “out of phase” as the year goes on. Plus half the fun of proposals like this is naming things, so I came up with some new month names.</p>
<p>To keep things simple, each month name has just three letters. This means there is no need to abbreviate them. To make them memorable, I chose names that are not English words but have unambiguous pronunciations. The new months are:</p>
<p>Arp, Baw, Cor, Dur, Ell, Fen, Gam, Hob, Isp, Jom, Kro, Lem, Mog and Non</p>
<h3 id="date-converter">Date Converter</h3>
<div id="date-convert">
<div class="current-date">
<h4>Date</h4>
<select id="current-month">
<option value="Jan">January</option>
<option value="Feb">February</option>
<option value="Mar">March</option>
<option value="Apr">April</option>
<option value="May">May</option>
<option value="Jun">June</option>
<option value="Jul">July</option>
<option value="Aug">August</option>
<option value="Sep">September</option>
<option value="Oct">October</option>
<option value="Nov">November</option>
<option value="Dec">December</option>
</select>
<button class="minus increment hidden">–</button>
<input id="current-day" type="text" pattern="\d*" value="1" />
<button class="plus increment hidden">+</button>
<div class="error hidden">
Enter a number between 1 and <span id="num">31</span>
</div>
</div>
<div class="new-date">
<h4>New Date</h4>
<span id="new-month">Arp</span>
<span id="new-day">1</span>
<span id="dayofweek">Sunday</span> <span id="short-date">1/1</span>
</div>
</div>
<h3 id="holidays">Holidays</h3>
<p>Since each 28 day month begins on a Sunday and ends on a Saturday, the Holidays always fall on the same day of the week. But which days?</p>
<p><strong>New Years Day</strong> – Sunday, Arp 1st (1/1)</p>
<p><strong>Martin Luther King Jr Day</strong> – Monday, Arp 16 (1/16)</p>
<p><strong>Valentine’s Day</strong> – Saturday, Baw 14th (2/14)<br />
If you wanted this to fall on the same day as the current calendar, it would be Tuesday Baw 17, since Arp is 3 days shorter than January. But if we keep it on the 14th it’s part of a 3 day weekend because of…</p>
<p><strong>President’s Day</strong> – Monday Baw 16th (2/16)</p>
<p><strong>Saint Patrick’s Day</strong> – Friday Cor 20th (3/20)<br />
March 17th in the current calendar is Cor 20th in the new calendar. This keeps it on the same day of the year and moves it permanently to a Friday.</p>
<p><strong>Easter</strong> - Only the lord knows how this date is calculated. (Seriously, it is complicated.) It would fall on a Sunday in Dur or Ell.</p>
<p><strong>Memorial Day</strong> – Monday, Ell 23rd (5/23)</p>
<p><strong>Independence Day</strong> – Monday, Gam 16th (7/16)<br />
July 4 in the current calendar falls on Gam 17th, a Tuesday. This is incovenient, so we observe it on a Monday.</p>
<p><strong>Labor Day</strong> – Monday, Jom 2nd (10/2)</p>
<p><strong>Halloween</strong> – Saturday, Kro 28th (11/28)<br />
This has it falling at the end of the 11th month. But due to the shorter, 28 day months, this is just three days later than it falls now.</p>
<p><strong>Thanksgiving</strong> – Thursday, Lem 26th (12/26)</p>
<p><strong>Christmas</strong> – Monday, Mog 23rd (13/23)
Mog 23 is the same day of the year as December 25 in the current calendar. I assume most people will get at least Mog 23rd & 24th off work.</p>
<p><strong>New Years Eve</strong> – Freeday, Non 1st or Leapday, Non 2nd<br />
These are essentially extra weekend days, since they fall between the last Saturday of the year and the new year, which starts on Sunday.</p>
Show Some Courage Senatorhttp://infomongo.com/posts/show-some-courage-senator-gardner/2017-07-28T00:00:00+00:00<p>Dear Mr. Gardner,</p>
<p>In my opinion you were wrong to vote for the Repeal/Replace bill. You were wrong on the Repeal-only bill. You were double-extra-wrong on the Skinny Repeal vote.</p>
<p>What we need is a group of more moderate centrists to work across party lines. I had hoped that you would be that kind of Senator.</p>
<p>That would take courage though. You have to stick your neck out to work across the aisle. So far, we haven’t seen much courage out of you.</p>
<p>Maybe Graham’s more state-centered approach to Healthcare could work? Maybe you could even find a large group in the center for this? I don’t know.</p>
<p>Maybe the answer is to get to work on fixing the problems in Obamacare. It’s not the leftist system is has been sold to be. And it definitely has problems. There is work to be done.</p>
<p>Here’s hoping we can expect better from you,<br />
John Phillips</p>
<p>Colorado Native and long-time Sunnyside Resident.</p>
The Other Kind Of Researchhttp://infomongo.com/posts/the-other-kind-of-research/2017-07-24T00:00:00+00:00<div class="main wide">
<img src="/img/store-fronts.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Sunny street with a bunch of store fronts." />
</div>
<p>The first step in most UX work is research. You need to understand who is going to use the product and what they want to accomplish. You need to understand their backgrounds. What applications they use and like. User research is foundational.</p>
<p>But there is another kind of research that needs be done early in a project. You need to understand the business goals: how the organization will make money.</p>
<h3 id="an-illustrative-story">An Illustrative Story</h3>
<p>I used to work for Local Matters, a company that built web sites for Yellow Page (directory) companies. We had some state-side customers, but most of our clients were in Europe.</p>
<p><em>(I got to go all kinds of places I never thought I’d visit, like Helsinki, Finland. Which was fun, and I totally recommend it. But that is a different story…)</em></p>
<p>Very early days, before I joined the company, Local Matters had done a bunch of user research. They understood that users of these sites skewed younger. Older people would use the printed directories but everyone else would use the web. And for most types of searches, all things being equal, <strong>the best match would be a nearby business</strong>.</p>
<p>For example, if you were trying to find a shoe store, a hardware store or the like, generally you wanted one close to home or work. If you were looking for a plumber or a locksmith, then location didn’t matter as much.</p>
<p>Local Matters had also done a lot of competitive research on the existing directory sites and found that often the results weren’t surfacing nearby business. It seemed like we could do better. We could offer clients local search sites that were better tuned to the needs of their users. The company had a lot great technology and smart people. It seemed like a win-win situation.</p>
<p>When I joined the company, we were in the thick of our first customer deployment and things were getting real, even a little testy. As it turns out, the company’s plans were rubbing up against the business model of the yellow pages.</p>
<h3 id="how-yellow-pages-make-money">How Yellow Pages Make Money</h3>
<p>The directory companies make money by charging small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to advertise in the books. The books list businesses in alphabetical order by category. They list every business, and offer business various kinds of ads. Some are simple and cheap, like <strong>bolding</strong> the business name and phone number. Or a business could add a logo or border to its listing. And of course, businesses could buy larger and more expensive ads.</p>
<p>The directory companies had large sales staffs. They had sold a lot of ads to a lot of business. Since the books existed before the internet, the directories tended to sell online advertising as add-ons to existing ad packages in the books.</p>
<p>I joined the company in In 2005, and at that time the internet was a force. It was reshaping businesses and turning over a lot of apple carts, but the directories were still making a lot more money from their printed books.</p>
<p><img src="/img/shopping-mall.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Interior of a shopping mall." /></p>
<p>Top advertisers in the books would have those large quarter page ads shown at the beginning of a category in the books. In fact, for popular categories, the first several pages would all be ads. To the directory companies, it made sense to show their advertisers first in the search in the search results. They wanted to sort the results by advertising tier, platinum listings first, then gold, then silver and so on.</p>
<p><strong>This is in direct conflict with what their users wanted.</strong> Remember, users typically want the closest business offering what they are shopping for.</p>
<p>The sheer number of advertisers was also a hurdle. When using the books, you had to view quite a number of pages. You’d page thru the book to find the right category, then page thru that section looking for a store close to you. That meant there were lots of opportunities to display adds and the typical user saw a lot of them.</p>
<p>But when using search site, you don’t expect to view many pages. You’d enter your search term (the what) and a location to search (the where). People would expect that best results would be listed first, that nearby businesses would be given priority. <strong>This makes it impossible to show the same number of ads on the web.</strong></p>
<p>If we showed just advertisers, sorted by tier, it could look like there were no businesses nearby, if none of the top advertisers were close. <strong>But site visitors knew better, so the results would just look wrong</strong>. Plus, people only view the second page of results if the first page was helpful. If the first page seems off, people tend to get frustrated and leave. Again, limiting the number of ads users would see.</p>
<h3 id="so-where-did-that-leave-us">So Where Did That Leave Us?</h3>
<p>UX work in this space meant explaining these differences to clients and advocating on behalf of users. To effectively represent users, you had to be able to explain the differences between paging thru the book and searching online. To guide clients to good choices, you had to understand their ad-driven business model.</p>
<p>In truth it was a mixed bag. Some of the directories did not embrace the differences. That first client, who offered <strong>bold</strong> names and phone numbers as an ad product in their books, they carried that over to their site. With some names <strong>bold</strong> and others plain, <strong>it looked kinda like a bug when the page rendered</strong>.</p>
<p>Other directories took better approaches. With many, we sorted the results by distance, with advertisers shown before non-advertisers when the distance was even. Advertisers would get a slight bump, but wouldn’t dominate the first page of results.</p>
<h3 id="wrapping-up">Wrapping Up</h3>
<p>To be an effective UX designer at the company, you had to understand the directory business. You had to learn what was possible and <strong>how to sell your ideas to the stakeholders</strong>. You couldn’t be an absolutist and argue only from the the user’s point of view. You needed to understand what users wanted, and also the relationship between the directories and their advertisers. A lot of the job was saying no to things, trying to talk the directories out of bad ideas. And to do this effectively, you had to understand the business realities of an advertising-driven industry.</p>
You Think Your Website Looks Like This…http://infomongo.com/posts/you-think-your-website-looks-like-this/2017-06-29T00:00:00+00:00<p>It’s a safe bet that a substantial amount of your site’s traffic is coming from mobile devices. It’s a sure thing that your mobile numbers are growing while desktop is shrinking. Let’s go to the charts.</p>
<h3 id="internet-usage-worldwide-march-2009-to-may-2017">Internet Usage Worldwide, March 2009 to May 2017</h3>
<p><img src="/img/internet-usage-ww.png" class="full-width no-offset" alt="Line graph showing desktop, mobile an tablet percentages. Desktop steadily decreasing, while mobile increases." /></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/worldwide/#monthly-200903-201705">StatCounter GlobalStats</a> <em>(see note 1 below)</em></p>
<p>In October of 2016, the lines cross and mobile surpasses desktop. The numbers are a little different in the US, but the basic story is the same.</p>
<h3 id="internet-usage-us-march-2009-to-may-2017">Internet Usage U.S., March 2009 to May 2017</h3>
<p><img src="/img/internet-usage-us.png" class="full-width no-offset" alt="Line graph showing desktop, mobile an tablet percentages in US. Mobile still slightly below desktop in May of 2017." /></p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet/united-states-of-america/#monthly-200903-201705">StatCounter GlobalStats</a></p>
<p>In the U.S. desktop still has the lead, but it is eroding. And there are plenty of other signals that mobile web usage is growing. For example, <a href="https://adwords.googleblog.com/2015/05/building-for-next-moment.html">this post on Google’s AdWords blog</a> from May 2015, where the company writes, “In fact, more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.”</p>
<p>And we all kind of know this, at least intellectually. But it’s different to internalize it and act on it.</p>
<p>I was speaking with a colleague <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonkrogers/">Jason Rogers</a> recently, and he put it very succinctly:</p>
<h3 id="people-think-their-website-looks-like-this">“People think their website looks like this.”</h3>
<p><img src="/img/solar-desktop.jpg" class="full-width" alt="Go Solar website, as viewed on a desktop browser. The page is wide, but short." /></p>
<h3 id="when-it-actually-looks-like-this">“When it actually looks like this.”</h3>
<div>
<img src="/img/solar-mobile.jpg" class="float shrink pull" alt="Go Solar website, as viewed on a mobile browser. The page narrow and very tall." />
</div>
<p>Jason demonstrated the differences by drawing rectangles on a whiteboard, a fat wide one for desktop and tall skinny one for mobile.</p>
<p>It spoke to me about the disconnect between what we know and what we believe. How intellectual knowledge may fail to motivate us to take action. We know mobile is growing and desktop is shrinking, but we often act as if the desktop view is the “real” version.</p>
<p>We were talking about this in the context of form conversion. And yeah, mobile conversion rates are often lower. But when you look at it through this lens, it’s not really a mystery why. It’s the difference between having a responsive site and committing to a mobile first design.</p>
<h4 id="notes">Notes:</h4>
<p><em>1. StatCounter are a bit vague about what they are actually measuring. Their <a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/press/mobile-and-tablet-internet-usage-exceeds-desktop-for-first-time-worldwide">press release announcing this milestone</a> refers to “internet usage”. Their <a href="http://gs.statcounter.com/faq#methodology">FAQ</a> explains, “Our tracking code is installed on more than 2.5 million sites globally.” So I think those charts are tracking website visits.</em></p>
<p><em>2. In the example solar site, the entire form is below the fold in mobile. The mobile layout feels like an afterthought.</em></p>
<p><br clear="both" /></p>
Make It Obvioushttp://infomongo.com/posts/make-it-obvious/2017-06-23T00:00:00+00:00<p>When designing an application, make it obvious how to get started.</p>
<p>The canonical example of an obvious starting point:</p>
<p><img src="/img/google.png" class="full-width" alt="Google Home Page" /></p>
<p>This is a recent capture of Google’s home page. The core design is nearly identical to the first version of the Google home page that debuted in 1998. Other than the branding, I think the only thing new is the microphone, which allows you to search with your voice.</p>
<p>At the time, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_portal">portals</a> ruled the world. All the search engines had a search field, but most of the page was taken up with lists of links.</p>
<p>Here is one current site that still uses this approach:</p>
<p><img src="/img/craigslist.gif" class="full-width" alt="Craig's List Home Page" /></p>
<p class="caption">Seriously kids, this is what most of the web looked like in 1999.</p>
<p>All of Google’s competitors were using a design that looked a lot like Craigslist. (Anyone remember Lycos? AltaVista?)</p>
<p>Google’s design is superior because it’s obvious where to begin. Since the interface is limited to a single text field and a couple of buttons, you really have no choice but to just start typing. What else are you gonna do?</p>
<p>This design has been so successful, and so copied, for a number reasons. First, it makes it perfectly clear how to begin. Second, it sets expectations clearly. It says, “This is a search site,” loud and clear. And, given the size of the corpus being searched —the entire web— searching is a much more efficient way to navigate the space than clicking links into a deeply nested categorization scheme.</p>
<p>Not many people use the Google home page anymore, most people start searches in their browser. But credit Google for keeping this design and not watering it down with links to their other products.</p>
<h3 id="another-example">Another Example</h3>
<div>
<img src="/img/lyft.jpg" width="320" class="retina float pull" alt="Lyft Home Screen" />
</div>
<p>Lyft is also doing a fine job getting you started. The app is using your location to set the pickup point and the big purple ‘Set pickup’ button is hard to miss.</p>
<p>This screen is also a study in the use of <strong>intelligent defaults</strong>. Most of the time, you are going to want to be picked up at or near your current location. Most people want to be picked up now, and this is also the default. (You can click the clock icon to schedule a later pickup.) And most people are going to take a standard Lyft, but the other types of rides are listed, too.</p>
<p>There is another starting point here, the gift icon in the upper right. This allows you to invite other people to join Lyft. And by doing so you can earn rewards: discounted or free rides.</p>
<p>The gift icon is bit confusing. My assumption was that clicking it would allow me to buy a ride for a friend as a gift. They seem to be using it to mean “earn rewards,” but gifts are given not earned… This would probably be more clear with a text label “Invite Friends” than an icon. Hard to imagine an icon that clearly communicates “invite friends.”</p>
<p>Note the relative weights of the elements on screen. The button is the first thing you notice, then the map pin and current location marker, then the choice of ride types, then the search field where you set the pickup location. This hierarchy supports the user’s goals. The only control you have to interact is the button, and you aren’t gonna miss it. The pickup location is also important, you need to know where the car will be waiting. The other elements are less important. They are used less often, and the visual presentation supports this.</p>
<p>On other thing to notice about the app: its ergonomics. The most important control, the big button, is at the bottom of the screen. Why the bottom? Because it is easy to reach with your thumb when holding the phone with one hand.</p>
<p>You may be thinking that it’s easy for Google and Lyft to be obvious because they each do only one thing. This is true, as far as it goes. Your job as a designer is to focus the app, to figure out which features are most important and most used and put those front and center. This is what making things obvious is all about.</p>
<h3 id="wrapping-up">Wrapping Up</h3>
<p>UX designers: you are trying to create a focus for each page or screen. To do this you need to understand your users and the tasks they want to accomplish. It means reducing the the cognitive load of the page, giving users less stuff to parse and understand. Often it means creating separating UX for each task, with links between them where it makes sense.</p>
<p>Product people: this also requires an understanding of your application’s users and the tasks they want to achieve. It argues for restraint in the features you add to the product.</p>
<p>Another great article about obvious design: <a href="https://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1945">Obvious Always Wins</a> by Luke Wroblewski.</p>