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1000 results for “Just_UX”
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CW: Big Dumb UX Rant About Menu Bars
I really don't understand people that are ride or die for menu bars. They're not intuitive and it's hard to know what's under what menu. If it wasn't for people being used to them as a convention, the headers don't make any sense to me. File > Quit? Does that really make intuitive sense to people? :meowdizzy: It's also really hard to drill down properly because every menu item gets top billing, unless you have nested menus which are just a pain in the ass to navigate without accidentally clicking off or hovering over the wrong thing.
To me, macOS's worst aspect is the fact that they built the menu bar into their shell. Is the feature that's crucial to the function of an application in the toolbar of the window you're in? Nope! It's not in the window at all! It's up at the top of the screen for some reason, and who knows what heading it's under. :blobfoxtableflip: Apple really needs to merge their operating system offerings into one OS and offer either a desktop mode or a touch mode, but they can't do that because all of their stupid desktop applications rely on a stupid menu bar that's stupid. :meowpout:
Also, Cosmic's decision to go with menu bars merged with header bars is really off-putting to me. It feels like the worst of both worlds. :neofox_thonk: At least to me, it makes the interface design language look really inconsistent and confused.
Does any of this actually matter? No. :meowuwu: Does it drive me a little insane and make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people vehemently defend them as being a good user interface? YES. :blobfoxtableflip:
#UI #UX #UserInterface #UserExperience #Menu #MenuBar #MenuBars #FOSS #Linux #macOS #Apple #Cosmic #CosmicDE
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CW: Big Dumb UX Rant About Menu Bars
I really don't understand people that are ride or die for menu bars. They're not intuitive and it's hard to know what's under what menu. If it wasn't for people being used to them as a convention, the headers don't make any sense to me. File > Quit? Does that really make intuitive sense to people? :meowdizzy: It's also really hard to drill down properly because every menu item gets top billing, unless you have nested menus which are just a pain in the ass to navigate without accidentally clicking off or hovering over the wrong thing.
To me, macOS's worst aspect is the fact that they built the menu bar into their shell. Is the feature that's crucial to the function of an application in the toolbar of the window you're in? Nope! It's not in the window at all! It's up at the top of the screen for some reason, and who knows what heading it's under. :blobfoxtableflip: Apple really needs to merge their operating system offerings into one OS and offer either a desktop mode or a touch mode, but they can't do that because all of their stupid desktop applications rely on a stupid menu bar that's stupid. :meowpout:
Also, Cosmic's decision to go with menu bars merged with header bars is really off-putting to me. It feels like the worst of both worlds. :neofox_thonk: At least to me, it makes the interface design language look really inconsistent and confused.
Does any of this actually matter? No. :meowuwu: Does it drive me a little insane and make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people vehemently defend them as being a good user interface? YES. :blobfoxtableflip:
#UI #UX #UserInterface #UserExperience #Menu #MenuBar #MenuBars #FOSS #Linux #macOS #Apple #Cosmic #CosmicDE
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CW: Big Dumb UX Rant About Menu Bars
I really don't understand people that are ride or die for menu bars. They're not intuitive and it's hard to know what's under what menu. If it wasn't for people being used to them as a convention, the headers don't make any sense to me. File > Quit? Does that really make intuitive sense to people? :meowdizzy: It's also really hard to drill down properly because every menu item gets top billing, unless you have nested menus which are just a pain in the ass to navigate without accidentally clicking off or hovering over the wrong thing.
To me, macOS's worst aspect is the fact that they built the menu bar into their shell. Is the feature that's crucial to the function of an application in the toolbar of the window you're in? Nope! It's not in the window at all! It's up at the top of the screen for some reason, and who knows what heading it's under. :blobfoxtableflip: Apple really needs to merge their operating system offerings into one OS and offer either a desktop mode or a touch mode, but they can't do that because all of their stupid desktop applications rely on a stupid menu bar that's stupid. :meowpout:
Also, Cosmic's decision to go with menu bars merged with header bars is really off-putting to me. It feels like the worst of both worlds. :neofox_thonk: At least to me, it makes the interface design language look really inconsistent and confused.
Does any of this actually matter? No. :meowuwu: Does it drive me a little insane and make me feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people vehemently defend them as being a good user interface? YES. :blobfoxtableflip:
#UI #UX #UserInterface #UserExperience #Menu #MenuBar #MenuBars #FOSS #Linux #macOS #Apple #Cosmic #CosmicDE
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The #Uxbridge #Byelection has shown the Tories how well Climate Culiture War tactics can work: spreading #Misinformation about #ULEZ, branding #Labour “the political wing of Just Stop Oil”.
I expect the Tories will go for this full-on in the next elections, & the earlier we recognise & mobilise against this the better. Even if they lose these narratives are incredibly harmful #GTTO #ULEZ
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It's not you, it's me. I really want to like Monster Hunter, and I've tried. I played the beta version of World, then the beta version of World: Iceborne, and now I've tried Rise as part of PS+. I think I'd really enjoy the gameplay loop, but I'm not a fan of the setting and UI (and the majority of the UX). I just can't get into it at all. It's a real shame 😢.
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It's not you, it's me. I really want to like Monster Hunter, and I've tried. I played the beta version of World, then the beta version of World: Iceborne, and now I've tried Rise as part of PS+. I think I'd really enjoy the gameplay loop, but I'm not a fan of the setting and UI (and the majority of the UX). I just can't get into it at all. It's a real shame 😢.
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It's not you, it's me. I really want to like Monster Hunter, and I've tried. I played the beta version of World, then the beta version of World: Iceborne, and now I've tried Rise as part of PS+. I think I'd really enjoy the gameplay loop, but I'm not a fan of the setting and UI (and the majority of the UX). I just can't get into it at all. It's a real shame 😢.
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It's not you, it's me. I really want to like Monster Hunter, and I've tried. I played the beta version of World, then the beta version of World: Iceborne, and now I've tried Rise as part of PS+. I think I'd really enjoy the gameplay loop, but I'm not a fan of the setting and UI (and the majority of the UX). I just can't get into it at all. It's a real shame 😢.
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It's not you, it's me. I really want to like Monster Hunter, and I've tried. I played the beta version of World, then the beta version of World: Iceborne, and now I've tried Rise as part of PS+. I think I'd really enjoy the gameplay loop, but I'm not a fan of the setting and UI (and the majority of the UX). I just can't get into it at all. It's a real shame 😢.
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I am in need of someone to give me a high-level website design for a service I'm developing. I don't need a bunch of web development, just a set of wireframes and design elements (color palette, general shapes and page layout, maybe some icons). Can anyone recommend someone?
TIA! -
Baratza Encore ESP Pro Grinder
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ArticleOut of the Box
I won’t go into a lot of details about what’s new on this grinder, except to reference those new features, because we covered that in our initial post on the Encore ESP Pro. I will highlight and clarify some elements and assumptions based on the initial hands on use. If you do want a concise breakdown on what is new in this grinder, check that article out.
The Encore ESP Pro (or EEP for short) still adheres to Baratza’s “big beautiful brown box” philosophy of having sustainable and environmentally friendly packaging, right down to the compostable bags to protect the grinder from scuffs during shipping, but this time around they’ve also done a lot more printing on the box. It is packed securely and compactly, and when I first unboxed it, I thought perhaps they forgot to include the dosing cup and its little shelf, but nope, there it was, inside the larger grinds bin.
The front of the Encore ESP Pro box. Note, since Breville has taken over, they’ve added more graphics to the box compared to a few years ago.
Side of the box talks about the Etzinger M2 Burrs. We will too, below.
Other side is mainly branding.
The back of the box has some details about the grinder. Again, this is getting a bit away from Baratza’s “beautiful brown box” with the added ink.
Baratza has long figured out how to securely pack their grinders, and the Encore ESP Pro is no different
Inside the inner box is the main on demand hopper, in its own cardboard cocoon.
Once the top cardboard forms are removed, the main grinder body reveals itself
All removed from the boxes, the grinder and hopper are wrapped in compostible bags.
A first peak at the grinder itself. It looks quite good!
Baratza’s an industry leader in ethical, environmentally friendly packaging. They even use compostable bags to protect ther machines in transit.
The grinds bin, which looks identical to the older Encore and Virtuoso Plus models. Has extra goodies inside.
The single dose cup and its silicone base. Note the silicone ring around the top – remove that to fit the cup into 54mm portafilters.Setting up the grinder is mostly painless, though I did have a brief head-scratching moment that led to a quick call to Baratza support. I couldn’t figure out how to properly attach the bean hopper to the sleek, mostly metal single dose collar and grind adjustment dial. I checked the quick start guide and manual, but didn’t find anything about how to assemble the bean hopper. I noticed tiny “dedents” on the hopper and a subtle ridge inside the collar; it looked like they should snap together. I pressed hard. Nothing. Pressed harder. Felt plastic groaning. I had mild panic and visions of broken plastic.
Turns out, I was doing it all wrong.
Those dedents are part of a clever new system: they recess into the hopper body when you close the internal “trap door” for the beans, and stick out again when you open the bean flow vanes.The hopper, inspired by Breville’s Smart Grinder Pro hopper, but more minimalist, has a rotating handle inside. Turn one way and vanes shut the bean chute; turn the other and they open. The action also recesses and exposes the little dedents. The trick? Close the vanes, insert the hopper in the single dose bean collar hopper,, then open them. Voilà: hopper locked in place.
With that mystery solved, I set about my first use and exploration of the grinder.
These are the little small profile dedents that extend out, or retract, to lock the bean hopper into place on the single dose metal hopper.
Here, the dedents are retracted, making them flush with the rest of the collar.Materials and Build Quality
Let’s just get this out of the way: everything about the Encore ESP Pro (or EEP, for those who appreciate a good acronym) feels like it belongs in the premium league. Starting with the single dose hopper and grind adjustment collar, the construction is mostly metal where your hands interact, with plastic used only where it makes sense.
The hopper slots into a largely metal burr carrier and adjustment mechanism. There are no clicks when turning it either. This is a stepless grinder, so smooth rotation is the action you’ll feel. The metal is a sharp, nearly matte black, with bold white lines and bean size icons that are easy to read. It also rotates a full 270 degrees, a big jump from the 180 degrees on the regular Encore ESP.
Now for the side panels. I could have sworn they were metal. They even sound like it when you tap them. But surprise: they’re plastic. That said, they’re coated in some mystery finish that feels cool, textured, and convincingly metallic. Bonus points: they resist smudgy fingerprints. Actually, the whole grinder does. Even the front display somehow stays relatively clean despite daily use.
The metal parts of the grinder are mostly in the grinds chamber, motor mount, skeleton, and what I call the “shoulders” of the unit. That’s the section that wraps from the top, around the display, and down the front where the control dial lives. It feels like plastic at first touch, but it’s a coated metal wrap.
Front view of the Encore ESP Pro, in single dose setup.
Glad to see the company has gone with minimal branding. This panel is mostly plastic, but feels like metal.
The back, mostly plastic, has no branding. Note the cord placement.
Again, no branding, nice matte black, has a similar silhouette to the Encore ESP.
This is very well made, and is mostly metal. I do have slight concerns about the anti-popcorning bit in the middle impeding the flow from coffee beans from the full on demand hopper, given beans have to pass through that bigger hopper’s vanes first, before getting to the anti-popcorn plate.
Here’s a first peak at another innovation in the grinder: the Feed Control disk, which regulates and slows down the feed to the burrs.
Installing the single dose hopper: line it up with the marked tick line on the grinder body.
Attaching the single dose hopper is straightforward: line up the marker with the line on the grinder body, insert, and rotate to lock into place.
A Breville influence here: Baratza never used to put display stickers on their grinders to show you what the display would look like. That’s a Breville thing.
The single dose cap can also be used as a bean cup on your scale to measure out your single doses. I kind of wish it had an incorporated bellows design.The on demand bean hopper has been redesigned too, and is different from the bean hoppers Baratza has been using for over a decade. The EEP full bean hopper has a lower profile, and likely holds less than the older Encore models (I will measure that). But it has a slick new bean stop system that keeps your coffee from making a break for it when you remove the hopper. A lot of the engineering behind it been borrowed from the now 15 year old design of the Smart Grinder Pro hopper, but it is much more refined, more low-profile, with a lot less plastic and moving parts. It’s small things like this that show someone was thinking and evolving a product line.
The grinds bin seems to be the same one from the previous Encore and Virtuoso models. I’ll do a side-by-side check to be sure, but it looks and feels identical. No surprises there. Ditto with the single dose grinds catch and the little silicone base it slots into.
That front control dial, though, is a highlight. It has a good weight to it and turns with a satisfying dampened feel. It’s tactile and gives off a vibe that says, “I’m not like those cheap plastic knobs on budget machines.” Of all the control points Baratza has put out over the years, this one feels the most high-end. Etched into the dial are directional indicators on the front.
The on demand, full bean load hopper is designed to lock into the single dose metal hopper.
The vanes, open on the hopper. I did have concerns that these would have feed issues with the single dose hopper’s anti-popcorn device right below these.
The vanes closed on the new hopper design from Baratza
The hopper’s handle is used to open or close the hopper vanes, and lock the hopper into place on the single dose mini hopper.
The single touch control dial has a nice dampened feel to it, pushes confidently, and has etched directional indicators
Not talked a lot about in this First Look – this is the flow control dial. It’s meant to regulate the flow of beans into the burrs better.You also get a solid accessory lineup: the single dose grinds catcher, the bigger bin, the single dose hopper, and the larger bean hopper. Swapping them out is easy and intuitive. The grinds cup works with both 58 mm and 54 mm portafilters. Just pull out a silicone ring to accommodate the smaller ones.
Now the display. In a word, it is slick. When not in use, it stays completely blacked out. Fire it up and it lights up bright enough to read in a dark kitchen at 6 a.m. without blinding you. Yet it’s still easily readable in a fully lit, mid day kitchen. There are three little icons that pop up depending on what the grinder’s doing. Timer mode shows a clock. Grind setting mode brings up a container with a pyramid of dots. If you’re in the espresso range, it displays “ESP” with an underscore, on the right.
The numbers will show either a countdown or count-up timer, the grind setting, or “END” when it finishes a timed grind. It switches automatically depending on what’s happening. One small quirk: if you’re adjusting the grind while the EEP is running, the display only shows the timer, not the grind setting. It’s not the end of the world, just something to note.
Here, the grinder is in auto-off mode, at 50.5 on the grind dial setting. Note no “ESP” graphic or timer graphic.
Here, the grinder is in timer mode (long press to switch), but in standby still shows the grinder setting, and not the programmed time.
This mode is auto off mode, in the espresso grinding range (below 40), showing the ESP graphic.
Here, the grinder is displaying ESP grind range, timer mode, and I just turned the dial to set the time for 11.5 seconds grinding time. It will revert back to showing the grind setting after a few seconds.
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Except for the initial confusion over how to properly attach the on demand bean hopper, I found using the Encore ESP Pro to be quite intuitive. There’s something about a single touch point for most of the grinder’s smart controls that works very well on this grinder. Even without reading the manual, I knew that a long press on that main dial would switch the grinder’s two main modes, as an example.
Encore ESP Pro’s Modes
The EEP has two modes: timed and auto stop. Long press the dial to toggle between them. In auto stop, you just press once to start and again to stop. It also works as a manual mode for folks using a full hopper. The maximum grinding time is 60 seconds, even in manual mode.
In auto stop, the timer counts up. In timer mode, it counts down. You only get one timer setting, so changing from 10 to 45 seconds means spinning the dampened control dial quite a bit. Not exactly cutting-edge tech, but nothing a little patience can’t handle.
The Encore ESP Pro, set up for single dose mode, on the bar, paired up with a Breville Infuser. Grind time for a 17.5g dose is about 9 seconds.Grind Settings and Espresso Range
I was surprised to find out that the Encore ESP Pro’s espresso range of grind settings is 1 to 40 on the grinder’s 60 steps (actually 120 steps, because there’s a half step displayed digitally, like 10.5). I thought it would be evenly split, with 1-30 for espresso, and 31-60 for other brew methods (similar to the Encore ESP). But nope: that little ESP indicator stays on until you hit 40.5.
That’s a pretty wide range of adjustment choices, though Baratza claims each setting in the espresso range is a 2.5 micron adjustment finer or coarser and your finest turning control on the stepless adjustment. The non espresso range results in much larger micron jumps between “clicks”.
I do have to note that the initial unit Bartaza sent me had a calibration and alignment issue: the grinder could only produce an acceptable espresso grind for our test machines (Breville Dual Boiler, Breville Infuser) at 38.5 on the grind adjustment setting. Anything below that would “choke” or stall the shot pulls. This left well over 75 different grind settings unusable in most circumstances.
Baratza immediately sent a replacement unit, and here’s what I’ve determined after initially seasoning the machine with about 4 pounds of coffee.
Putting the Encore ESP Pro through some early test paces.Dialing in Espresso
On our replacement unit, the initial sweet spot for our test espresso blend (Social Coffee’s amazing People’s Daily Blend) was 26.5 for our 2.5:1 target range of espresso: 18.5g in, 45g out, within 35 seconds (which includes the Dual Boiler’s 10 second preinfusion stage). This was with fresh, 6 day old coffee. Because the adjustment ranges are very small on the EEP, 15 day old coffee would be down around 23.5 for the same shot target range.
We had the chance to use some of Coffee Kev’s fantastic Coffee Works Chocolate Brownie Blend, which has some robusta and is roasted a tad darker than People’s Daily, and its dial in spot started around 24.5 for the same targets and volumes.
Early on, it was clear that the M2 burrs were doing their job well for espresso, and there’s a nice wide range of adjustment play one can have in hyper-dialing in an espresso blend. I find the M2 burrs do an excellent job in presenting just the right amount of fines you want in an espresso grind, one that brings on board complexity and nuances with just about any espresso blend or single origin roasted for espresso.
Evaluating the shots of espresso made with the Encore ESP Pro. We love these Kruve Propel cups for sensory evaluation.Dialing in Brew Coffee
When testing the Encore ESP Pro for brew methods, of course I had to figure out a good starting point for my grind settings. And yeah, there’s a lot of chatter online about this. Reddit, Discord, early YouTube reviews… the usual suspects. Everyone seems to have a different number. Some are up in the 50s for a V60 brew, others hanging out in the low 40s. Typical early-days chaos.
Baratza actually gave me some solid info on exactly how the grind adjustment works outside of the espresso range. Based on their guidance, I started at 47.5 for pour over. Using an Ethiopian from Social Coffee that was hitting on all cylinders as my morning cuppa, I hit the expected particle range, around 750 microns, but there were a lot of fines in my grind sample testing.
To be frank, this is where the Etzinger M2 burrs start to show their design age. I’ve been lucky to use better conical designs lately, like the Lagom Mini with its Moonshine burrs, so I could really see the difference. Once you get coarser, the M2s just aren’t in the same league if you’re chasing cup clarity.
The M2s are still decent for brew. Better than a lot of what’s out there. But this burr set was designed over ten years ago, and burr geometry and engineering philosophy has moved forward since then. Of course, RPMs play a big part too. The faster you spin, the more fines you get with conicals, and I believe the Encore ESP Pro spins faster than previous Encore models.
Right now, Moonshine burrs are my gold standard, followed by the 1Zpresso X-Ultra and J-Ultra. Those burrs are tuned for clarity at low RPMs. M2s? Still solid for espresso and AeroPress, but never great at Chemex or French press. Early tests on the ESP Pro confirm that.
For instance, producing a 750 micron mid point grind for V60, brews would take about 30-45 seconds longer to drain out than with a similar micron mid point produced by the Lagom Mini and its Moonshine burrs. The spent coffee bed in the V60 was more visibly muddy with the Baratza as well. More to come about this in the full review. In the meantime, here are some photos of the process, and my apologies for the unappealing nature of them.
For this round, I was using the fantastic Kirimahiga Kenyan from Matchstick Coffee.
Soupy, slow draw down in the Kalita Wave filters in an Origami filter holder.
Evidenced by the scale, the drawdown time was slow with the grinder set to roughly 750um, 47.5 on the dial.
The finished bed of coffee, very muddy.I’m happy with the grind noise of the Encore ESP Pro. Not only that, but the motor sounds better too. It always sounded like the Encore ESP and Virtuoso+ struggled in the motor department when grinding (the motors in both weren’t actually struggling, it had to do with how the grinder was geared); the EEP sounds more smooth and consistent. It’s also quieter than those other two grinders; more so in single dose mode, but also with the on demand hopper in place (as long as you have the lid on).
The built in plasma coil does the job. I’ve seen others report some static issues, but I think they were confusing chaff flying around with actual grinds static (there is not a single grinder on the planet that can prevent chaff flyout). Both with the single dosing cup, and the bin, static is at a minimum, and I have tested a variety of coffees in a variety of conditions (hot, humid, hot, sun exposed, cool morning, late evening) to see how static is handled.
The grinder does side-load the coffee a bit (always to the right side), so if you don’t have the single dose cup perfectly lined up (or don’t use the included silicone base plate under the cup), some grinds can miss the cup. The output is fluffy, generally uncompacted, and the best I’ve seen from any Encore or Virtuoso grinder.
Because this is a plasma coil anti-static grinder, you should not do a RDT (Ross Droplet Technique) on your beans fed into this grinder. Doing so will gum up the anti-static coil inside, rendering it inert. It will also clog up the grinder. This rule holds true for any grinder with a plasma or ionizer system.
The EEP is pleasingly fast in its output, faster than the Encore ESP, and even faster than the Virtuoso Plus. As of publication date, I haven’t completed my timer tests for grind ranges on the grinder, but the speed is good, and an improvement over the older grinders.
Putting the Encore through a battery of tests.Conclusion
There was a time when the words “Baratza” and “Encore” (and going even further back, “Maestro”) meant one thing: an entry-level, capable grinder you could snag for under $150. And that’s still true; as long as Baratza keeps selling the original Encore, or you find a used one online. Given how repairable and easy to maintain they are, buying second-hand isn’t exactly a gamble.
Now we have an Encore that costs $300; entry-level doesn’t quite fit anymore. It’s a bit like calling a craft beer just a refreshing, cold drink. This grinder is squarely in premium territory, loaded with advanced features. It’s the spiritual successor to the Virtuoso line, only it’s been dragged into the present with upgrades like an ionizer, an excellent auto-off function, and enough UI and UX polish to make tech companies jealous.
The build quality? Outstanding. The attention to touch points and user feel is better than anything I’ve seen at this price point. The display nails it: subtle, legible, and clean. It wouldn’t feel out of place on a gadget designed by a certain turtleneck-wearing design perfectionist from Cupertino.
That said, the one part that’s starting to show its age is the burrset. Baratza’s been using the M2 conical burrs from Etzinger for over a decade now, and they’re fine. Great for espresso, solid for pour over. But compared to the moonshine conies in the Lagom Mini or Mini 2, the M2s are outclassed. They struggle with coarser grinds and don’t handle Chemex or French press as gracefully.
Honestly, with everything else modernized, it’d be nice to see Baratza nudge Etzinger toward developing a next-generation M2. This new Encore ESP Pro deserves it. Is this a deal breaker? Heck no. In fact, given Baratza’s history of after sales service and upgradability, I wouldn’t be surprised to see down the road a new iteration of the Etzinger burrs that will not only be backwards compatible with the Encore ESP Pro and ESP, but also sold without much markup. Both of which add years of serviceability to this grinder.
With all that said, everything you’re reading here is just a slightly learned opinion, borne of a few weeks’ use of the Encore ESP Pro grinder after a break in period. This grinder will continue to occupy a prime spot on our test bench, and a full review with scores will be out later this year. Stay tuned, but if you have any questions now, feel free to ask them in the comments below.
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#baratza #conicalBurr #eep #encoreEspPro #firstLook #grinder
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Blitz! The thread about WW2 air raids in Edinburgh and Leith
An air raid on Leith on the night of Monday April 7th 1941 saw extensive property damage caused in North Leith. But it wasn’t just bricks and mortar that suffered: three people were killed and 118 injured in the raid which makes it the 10th most deadly such event (by total casualties) in Scotland during the war.
Leith Town Hall (now the Theatre) commemorative plaque marking damage done in the air raid, original picture © Leith TheatreNote, there was deliberately limited and non-specific press reporting of the details and casualties of air raids during the war itself. Some such reporting only took place, retrospectively, after the war but understandably details were occasionally incorrect or overlooked. For accuracy and out of respect I have endeavoured to cross-reference everything below that refers to individuals with the official civilian war death records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Scotland’s People.
One of those who lost their lives in the raid that night was 17 year old Anstruther (Ernie) Smith, a delivery boy from 15 Graham Street who also worked as a messenger for the Leith ARP (Air Raid Precautions – civil defence). On hearing the sirens he had assisted his elderly neighbours to a shelter before reporting for duty at Leith’s Town hall a few streets away where Ferry Road meets Great Junction and North Junction Streets. It was here that he lost his life when a bomb landed nearby and exploded. He was fondly remembered in his community as someone who freely helped the elderly; checking in on them on his way to work each morning to light their fires and make them a cup of tea, and running errands for them. The Anstruther Pensioner’s Club was formed after the war in his memory, it was held in the very room in the Town Hall where we died and it attracted 300 members and a waiting list of 200.
Anstruther Smith, a photo displayed in Leith Library in his memoryAlso killed by the same bomb that claimed Ernie was 85 year-old Jane Notman Young, who died in her house by the Town Hall at 21 North Junction Street. Lastly a 19 year-old apprentice draughtsman and Home Guard volunteer, Kenneth James Anderson, died in hospital the following morning after his house at 5 Largo Place was badly damaged in the blast. This block would later have to be demolished.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/15989027951/
Mercifully the death-to-injury ratio was substantially lower than other comparable attacks on Scottish cities; Leith had been hit by two bombs known as Luftmines – large weapons that were dropped on a parachute and intended for use against dock areas to attack shipping. These as it turned out were not very effective against other targets such as buildings, despite their size. Never the less, three hundred people in North Leith were rendered homeless due to the damage caused to housing in the neighbourhood. £1,500 was allocated to Leith from the National Air Raid Distress Fund, which provided emergency clothing, bedding and canteens to raid victims.
“Bombed Out”, illustration by War Artist Edward Ardizzone in April 1941 who was working in Glasgow and Edinburgh at this time. IWM (Art.IWM ART LD 1344)The bombs that hit Leith damaged the three principal public buildings of the burgh; its Town Hall (which included its main public auditorium), its Library – both of which were hardly 10 years old – and the large David Kilpatrick (“DK“) School adjacent. As well as the tenement houses, the Norwegian Seaman’s Lutheran Church, North Leith Parish Church and a railway embankment and signal box of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) all suffered varying degrees of damage. The gallery below shows some of these:
A photo showing the wrecked interior of the Leith Town Hall concert theatreDamaged interior of Leith Library during post-war repairs, 1953. © Edinburgh City LibrariesLeith Town Hall in 1957, the damage still not repaired after 16 years. From “The Sphere” magazine.Bomb damage of the “DK” school and annexe, a photo taken in April 1941 but not published until the war’s endBomb damage caused in Leith on April 7th 1941The main lending room of the library was not fully repaired until 1956 although the reference room had been re-purposed to serve as such in the meantime. The Town Hall and its auditorium had to wait until 1961, a full 20 years after the bombs had fallen. The city’s apparent neglect in restoring the public buildings of Leith after the war caused much local consternation at the time. This damaged caused to the outbuildings of the DK school, which were in use as a nursery school, became known locally as the Bombies and was apparently where pupils would gather to sort out their differences with fists. It would not be replaced until much later and this in turn was demolished, along with the rest of the school, in the 1980s.
Luftwaffe night-time bombing map of Edinburgh, Lothians and south Fife. It is tinted yellow to be better viewed under the night-time cabin lights of an aircraft. Targets (Ziele) were marked in luminescent ink.Although Leith was marked as a bombing target on German maps, the intended target of this raid had actually been Clydebank almost 50 miles to the west, where 20 souls lost their lives and 313 were injured that same night. This attack was a follow up to the Clydebank Blitz of March 1941 but the raiders had become scattered and twelve other targets across Scotland, including Leith, were hit that night with a total of 49 killed and 456 injured. Most of the deaths night were in Gretna in Dumfriesshire where a lone aircraft jettisoned its bombs and hit a Masonic Lodge, killing 22 and wounding 18. Other bombs were dropped as widely as Bankfoot and Stanley in Perthshire, Loch Nevis in Knoydart, Fife and Arbroath in the east of the country and Greenlaw to the south in the Borders; a huge margin of error. Closer to Leith were the mainline railway leading to the Forth Bridge near Turnhouse and Braehead House in Cramond with thirty four incendiary bombs between these points. These were 1kg aluminium tubes filled with a compound called Thermite which burned at around 2,500°C and were intended to set fire to wooden structures and the timber flooring and roof structures of buildings. These were a far cry from the ineffective rope and tar incendiaries dropped on Edinburgh and Leith by a German Zepellin in 1916.
WW2 German B1E 1kg incendiary, IWM MUN3291Although this raid caused the greatest damage to property in Leith during the war, it was not the worst in terms of the loss of life. The previous summer, on the evening of July 18th 1940 at 7:45PM, seven people were killed on George Street in North Leith (now known as North Fort Street). At 8 George Street David Lennie Duff (a 33 year-old basket maker) and his sister Lily Duff (a 23 year-old biscuit packer); Catherine Helliwell (a 61 year-old housewife) and her son-in-law Robert Thomson (a 25 year-old baker); Catherine Fallon Baird (74); and Catherine Redpath (41) who had been visiting the address from her home at 20 Gorgie Road were killed. Over the street at number 13, 15 year-old Jane (Jean) Bauld Rutherford from number 17 was killed when the bomb shelter she was in was hit. The fatal damage had been caused by bombs intended for the Victoria Dock, one of which hit the foot of Portland Place where a nearby tramcar was fortunate to miss getting a direct hit that would surely have resulted in more fatalities.
Repairs at Portland Place. © Edinburgh City LibrariesNumber 8 George Street, where six people had lost their lives, had to be demolished along with its neighbour at number 10 and was not rebuilt until 1959. The rest of the tenements of George Street – apart from the northern corner blocks – were later levelled by the city planners as part of the Fort Area Comprehensive Redevelopment not long afterwards.
The replacement flats for 8 George Street in Leith, a mid-century building replacing a Victorian tenement.Four days later, on July 22nd, a raid on Leith Docks killed Robert Hume of 45 Glover Street (aged 33), a fireman with the Auxiliary Fire Service at the Albert Dock. Also on this night Mary Fulton Riach (aged 65) of 23 Woodbine Terrace and Catherine Leishman (aged 68) of 4 Meadowbank Crescent both died from heart failure during the raid, the official cause of death being put down to “war operations“. Two months later, on September 29th, a single stray bomb fell on the block of number 21 – 27 Crewe Place in East Pilton killing the young McArthur children; brother and sister Morag Elizabeth (aged 5) and Ronald Egbert (aged 7) from number 27. Their neighbour Charles Fortune Wilson (aged 69) of number 25 would die the next day in hospital. The landlords and builders of this housing scheme, Mactaggart and Mickel, rehoused the now-homeless survivors and had rebuilt the house at their own expense within 6 weeks. A wartime shortage of timber meant it was given a flat roof, the only such house on the street and the only clue to its sad history.
21-27 Crewe Place, with a flat roof compared to the pitched roof of its neighbours.Another single, stray bomb dropped that evening hit a bonded whisky warehouse of the Caledonian Distillery on Duff Street in Dalry. The distillery was home to over a million gallons of highly-flammable spirit and an immense fire erupted, so ferocious that the reflection on the clouds in the night sky was apparently visible to German aircrew flying over Middlesborough, 150 miles (240km) away to the south. The bond was totally destroyed, as was one adjoining tenement of fourteen flats at 28 Springwell Place.
Firefighters damping down the remains of the Duff Street whisky bond.A week later around 745PM on October 7th, five small bombs were dropped in the district of Marchmont, landing at 29 Roseneath Terrace, 20 Meadow Place, 16 Roseneath Place, 13 Marchmont Crescent and 21 Marchmont Road. Eleven people were injured by flying glass and splinters. Three weeks later on the morning of October 26th, Margaret Ridley Stuart (aged 72) died at her flat at 45 Tolbooth Wynd in Leith from a heart attack brought on by another air raid leaving her husband Thomas, a retired dock labourer, a widower.
Unusually, a photograph of the raid that caused damage in Marchmont was published in the newspapers at the time, under the vague caption of “Tenements Resist Bomb Blast… in South-East Scotland”. Notice how many windows have been blown out.The following month the animal population of Edinburgh Zoo was reduced slightly when, on November 4th, two stray bombs hit the park killing six budgerigars and a wild rabbit (as reported by Zoo Director T. H. Gillespie to The Scotsman, Friday 20 December 1940). The craters were left unfilled and became a visitor attraction. A crater caused by a bomb dropped on the lawn of Holyrood Park was used by enterprising locals to raise money for a Spitfire Fund by charging for access to view it.
The month after the raid on North Leith which had killed Ernie, on the night of 6th May 1941, five lives were lost in the suburban bungalows of Duddingston on the outskirts of the city. One large bomb, three smaller ones and 100 incendiaries fell on Niddrie Road (now called Duddingston Park South), Milton Crescent and the Jewel Cottages at around half past midnight. Leonard Arthur Wilde (aged 39), an Air Raid Warden, was killed in his home at number 27 Milton Crescent along with his neighbours Joseph Watson (aged 40) of the Home Guard and William Dineley (aged 37). Lilias Tait Waterston (aged 69) was killed in her house at 26 Niddrie Road and her neighbour Barbara Thomson (87) was killed at number 30.
The last bombs of the war which caused fatalities in Edinburgh fell on Loaning Road in Craigentinny on the night of August 6th 1942, demolishing the Corporation tenement at number 35. Two people were killed; Elizabeth Veitch (aged 13) at number 35 and Robert Wright (aged 66), the janitor of Craigentinny Community Centre next door. A replacement tenement was built here post-war.
View from the back greensView from the frontPost-war replacementBomb damage at 35 Loaning Road, © Edinburgh City LibrariesYou can see in the first picture where the bomb has left a crater (green arrow), upended an “Anderson” shelter (blue) and the entrance to another shelter (orange). Note the white painted poles, so you don’t run into them in the dark
Air raid shelters in the back greens of Loaning Road. © Edinburgh City LibrariesEdinburgh and Leith were mercifully spared most of the horrors of aerial bombing meted out to other cities during WW2. Altogether there were 21 civilian deaths and about 210 injuries caused directly by aerial bombing. At least 5 further deaths were recorded as being due to “war operations” when people had heart attacks brought about by the shock and stress of experiencing an air raid.
Date of Air RaidLocationFatalities18th July 19408 & 13 George Street, North Leith722nd July 1940Albert Dock, Leith1 29th September 194025 & 27 Crewe Place, East Pilton37th April 1941North Leith36th May 194123-27 Milton Crescent & 26-30 Niddrie Road, Duddingston56th August 194235 Loaning Crescent, Craigentinny2Civilian fatalities in Edinburgh and Leith directly due to aerial bombingIf this thread has proved interesting you may be interested in a thread on the first aerial raids and shooting down of German aircraft over the UK in WW2 which took place over the Firth of Forth in view of Edinburgh and Leith or a thread detailing some of the anti-aircraft defences of the city during the conflict.
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#Lochend #Logan #Restalrig #StMargaret -
This year we had an insightful talk by @anditosan about a design system for @kde : https://youtu.be/Vrl7aRQ25HU?si=N2d8yLq2Ev1rNQ4O
Last year @tantacrul spoke about UX in Open Source and especially at #Audacity : https://youtu.be/12TJ-zTgiH0?si=lXI5gz_BkmWO81GU
And at the very first edition of #FOSSDesign we had Abhishek Sharma alongside Katie Wilson who spoke about usability in OSS: https://youtu.be/381Pb02Sa_Y?si=2d8cZmBVtX3zvpI5
These are just some examples from our archive. You can find all recordings on the @plainschwarz YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@PlainSchwarzUG/playlists -
*sigh* #Atlassian #Jira, that 21% of my team mates uses Figma doesn't automatically mean I need it.
Why does Atlassian have thus urge to push noise all over the services they provides. I just want to do my job, not being distracted by stuff I don't want to care about right now.
This is such poor #UX experience.
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"The developers I talked to agreed that LLMs will stick around and play a role in programming in the future in some fashion, but worried about how the industry will adapt to executives’ current obsession with the technology, especially when it comes to fostering future generations of developers.
“Older programmers will be fine if there are any jobs left in a few years, but I worry for people early in their careers,” the UX designer told me. “We are hiring junior programmers who rely on AI to complete the simplest tasks. They don't have the knowledge or experience to know when AI output is error-laden or inefficient.”
“I wish I had a crystal ball for this one, but my gut feeling is that this method of building software will be unsustainable either economically or in terms of tech debt,” the software engineer at the FAANG company said. “There's a pretty clear split on my team between people who love AI coding and those who just do it because it's what the company wants, and generally speaking I find that the people who are still [technically focused individual contributors] with their nose in code all the time are less likely to be big AI boosters. I think the tech and its outputs start to really break down the more you question them and those who are doing that day in and day out tend to have a worse opinion of the tech.”
“I think there will be a ‘reckoning’ or ‘awakening’ from the industry notion that now everyone can code and that vibe coding is viable for a real production app and software companies are dead,” the developer in fintech said. “I think we will grow to find the patterns and industry best practices that will balance the negatives of LLM development (hallucination, unstructured code) with better techniques to verify the output's correctness at scale, and the hype and techno optimism of AI will get to a saner middle ground.”"
https://www.404media.co/software-developers-say-ai-is-rotting-their-brains/
#AI #GenerativeAI #SoftwareDevelopment #Programming #AICoding #LLMs
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saw a bunch of these around here so might as well:
20s something living in #berlin
#graphicdesign #UI #UX by day
#opensource #privacy #security #nerd #geek by night
absolute #music nerd
#jungle #techno #breakbeat #dnb #ambiance #jumpstyle #memphis #phonk #rock #house #trance #cloudrap #hardwave #dub #dubstep (not brostep) #indie and whatevers #experimental or #newage#aggressiveskating #blading #snowboarding
used 2 organize and promote #raves and #events b4 adult life started eating my free time
still help out other #rave collectives with #soundsystem setup here and there
huge #audio nerdthat friend in the friend group that "knows" about tech
(im a highly #intuitive person and can use a search engine) (and obsessed with anything #tech and #tool related #digital and #analogue and love #tinkering with things to see what makes them tick)i love #driving and #riding wayy 2 much, like just pulling a throttle just numbs my brain in2 pure #bliss, without #blitzerapp i would have been rid of my licence years ago
#menace2society /ssometimes i play around with a #fullspectrum (what my frens call me) #camera
fluent in #sarcasm #darkhumor
maybe a bit #edgy sometimes
#terminallyonline #owo #rawrr -
I'm often inspired to share my thoughts, expound upon something I've read that sparks that inspiration, or pose a bit of socratric reasoning in discourse. Sometimes we actually edjumacate ourselves by asking the tough questions rhetorically. Sometimes it's even more effective if we share those quests with others. It can be a phrase, a paragraph, or a sentence that ignites that quest for understanding within me, and whether I'm simply working it through it myself for my own sake or a genuine desire to share some kind of enlightenment or wisdom with others, I usually feel better doing it in the public eye at the end of the day when all is said and done.
There's a bit of a stir in the Fediverse. Darnell offers us some valuable considerations and specifics in the link to his blog post below.
For me, I think the most interesting part when you read between the lines is, ...
> This latest move could be a way for Meta to use Threads to thwart any potential ActivityPub powered rivals in the Fediverse (like Pixelfed, Friendica & WordPress).
Note that nowhere is masto even listed there - it's insignificant. The #ActivityPub powered rivals in the #Fediverse cited are what have been considered for many years the direct corollaries to #InstaSPAM and #Faceplant, respectively, which of course are the exceedingly capable platforms #Pixelfed and #Friendica.
In all of that, considering that #WordPress is the big game changer here of most recent repute, enjoying a 42% market share of all websites worldwide certainly blows away anything Meta has to offer, but even though it is past the 4th of May, Faceplant and InstaSPAM still do comprise the #phantom_menace flavor of this week.
- Pixelfed has a very nice interface for browsing images. Unlike InstaSPAM however, there isn't this overwhelming nausea attending user accounts with duck-ass selfie-kisses blown into bacteria laden bathroom mirrors, or the overwhelming shitposting of memes scraped from other non-verbal teenage neanderthals. So yes, there's less traffic, typically, but actual photos of things that are actually important and relevant to the people posting them, and more so, liked and boosted by people who appreciate such sentimentalism or professional art. On the downside, is Pixelfed's relatively lackluster editor that fails to provide the poster with paragraph breaks in the WebUI with any reliability, it's mastocrap-like paltry 500 character limit per post, and a complete lack of formatting capabilities (i.e., Markdown or BBCode, Etc.). Having said that, the 500 character limit is easily remedied in a single entry of a config file, which is a blessing to many who have resorted to using the #A11Y alt-text fields to provide the descriptions and narratives for images uploaded, but the other sophomoric qualities of the editor leave massively huge run on paragraphs for the reader to endure - like this one, for example :p
Other awesome projects either spawned directly from, or inspired by the success of Pixelfed are the FediDB research database, which although pretty, leaves much to be desired with respect to completeness; Sup, a client/server federated chat app model; Loops, a closed beta service that aims to position itself as a replacement for, and similar to YouTube shorts; and PubKit, a tool service in closed beta at this time that attempts to service the same or similar tests that the production https://funfedi.dev/ resource does.
- Friendica was once a platform that closely mimicked the look and feel of Faceplant. And then it wasn't, as the Faceplant monoverse continued to evolve in look and feel, and Friendica lagged in what I typically refer to as "Prettiness". Those days are long past, Friendica looks better and better with each and every successive release, and there's an obvious effort on improving the UX for users, making it much more intuitive, and the UI, tending to the "Prettiness" that I do indeed place so much emphasis on.
Once the original darling of the Fediverse, Friendica is once again at the top of the heap with a few others. This does not include the increasingly marginalized masto brand, as more and more adoptees continue to turn their backs to that has-been flagship.
After increasingly pervasive betrayals of both the #FOSS and #DeSoc philosophies and advocates for the past couple of years, eventually revealing it's own EEE aspirations by actively conflating it's masto brand and registered trademarks with that of Fediverse. Even worse, overtly engaging in an onboarding scheme that actively funnels new #Fedizens to one masto machine in particular, in grand, deprecated silo fashion, the masto corporation has populated one of the largest monolithic vertical gardens in the Fediverse itself. The sad part is that, being just another twitter clone, it still has no sense of community and offers nearly a million users a single point of failure. Ouch!
This masto mega-silo problem becomes even less relevant when you visit the Friendica page above, and gloss over the phenomenal feature set and attention given to interoperability with a shopping list of other platforms, protocols, and clients, including:
RSS/Atom, StatusNet, GNU social, Diaspora, SMTP/IMAP, Bluesky, Tumblr, GNU Social, pump.io, Libertree, Blogger, WordPress, Twidere, AndStatus, Bitlbee, Choqok, Frentcl, Gwibber, Hotot, IdentiCurse, Pidgin/Purple, Mustard, Pino, TTYtter.
Now, you might note that Twitter/X has walled off its deprecated monolithic garden, but that doesn't mean that the client and other toolsets that work with those APIs don't still work just fine with Friendica. And we're not even stating the obvious here - ActivityPub clients like Husky, Fedilab, and Sengi work just fine with Friendica, including Friendiqa and Relatica - two fine examples among the numerous choices you have for native Friendica apps for Android and desktop.
For more of an in-depth read on Relatica, here's an article I published a while back
The second most interesting thing that Darnell mentions, I think, has to do with the verbiage in which he characterizes Existing and traditional Fediverse powered platforms. Rivals. He calls them, "...ActivityPub powered rivals". Hmmmm....
I do believe that's the first time I've actually heard it put quite like that. But it's true. to be certain, it wasn't, not by a longshot, just a little while ago, but now? Well, it's nothing that we've done here in the Fediverse, except for continue to just ignore what's going on with the #subjugated_chattel that have all but succumbed to the #Sunnyvale_Syndrome, and get on with the good work of building and #dogfooding FOSS. But, ...
It's got a lot to do with what you might call interlopers, carpetbaggers, snakeoil salesmen, infestation, or maybe just plain old encroachment of aged and abusive #dreadnoughts into the Fediverse that stubbornly adhere to their deprecated, monolithic silo model of privacy farming technologies.
Hitherto all of these ActivityPub refits and forays into a Privacy mindful and respecting network of social communications systems, people kept using terms like Alternatives, for ActivityPub powered platforms such as the three main platforms mentioned in Darnell's blog article.
Now, they're being elevated to the rank of Rivals? But we, we, didn't do anything!
Neither did the GPL'd Linux Kernel - it just continued to do what FOSS does. It doesn't care what thinks it may be in competition with, or what considers it a threat, or rival or yes, REPLACEMENT for things like Faceplant and InstaSPAM.
Yes, FOSS just lumbers and chugs right along, relatively oblivious to whatever the proprietary, closed source contemporaries think of it - with respect to Linux, It actually entered the jurisdiction of a market dominated by Microsoft, IBM, and a couple of others, was lampooned and ridiculed, until it was considered a Cancer, by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, but this wasn't Microsoft or others encroaching into a space where only Linux and the BSDs resided...
This time it is different, because it's the other way around, but the end result will be the same. In the meantime, the perceived hostile invader, at the moment, is Zuckerberg's Meta. This isn't an EEE in the works, it's a desperate attempt to reach and hold onto the the coping that lines the deep end of a swimming pool which InstaSPAM and Faceplant must learn to swim in, and yet cannot - in the meantime, until it is able to tread those waters, it is feebly dog-paddling toward the edge where a handhold can be made while it is fitted with water-wings.
Even though both Tom (everyone's friend) and Eugen are happily traveling around the world snapping photographs and flirting with photography as a hobby, #Mark_Zuckerberg really doesn't wanna be #Myspaced.
If you don't move, you atrophy.
But Friendica, WordPress, and Pixelfed? Well, they're just FOSS, and they're just doing what FOSS does - exist, improve, and evolve. independently and irrespective of commercial threats by would be competitors.
Existing Fediverse platforms continue to onboard new Fedizens hourly, that's not slowing down, and it isn't going to either. Some of these n00bs are straddling the fence until they get their sea legs, existing in both worlds, while others are just cutting ties with the deprecated monolithic silos and jumping into the pool head first.
This phenomena of adoption and the logarithmic increase in onboarding and the deployment of new Fediverse instances is only going to pick up pace as the masses of users on platforms like #Threads and #Bluesky continue to become aware of the Fediverse, and the freedoms they can enjoy in social communication through leveraging WordPress, Pixelfed, and Friendica (and it goes without saying, all the rest of the wonderful platforms too).
With a community facade that pretended to hold the reigns of masto having been dropped, leaving a new 501(c)(3) masto corporation in the US steered by the likes of Twitter founders themselves, the steam is running out on that brand, and although Meta, via Threads, is certainly welcome to participate in the #FEP process (they actually are), there's really no foothold with which they can insert a toe and dictate very much at all that the community itself isn't inclined to adopt already, independently and without concern of capture by well funded special interest groups - like the new US masto corp.
But in closing, let's get back to why all of this doesn't even really matter where existing traditional Fediverse platforms are concerned - or the millions of users actively engaged on those thousands of hubs and instances:
Because it's FOSS, it evolves organically, and just doesn't care about that kind of stuff, lolz.
⛵
.
RE: https://one.darnell.one/users/darnell/statuses/112405069391666443
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Totally. I am myself as technical person stuck in Yunohost because of all kinds of upgrade issues. The "bring together" on a holistic basis is exactly what I do applied research on with Social experience design i.e. #SX.
In the case of #FOSS that means transitioning (or rather evolving) towards #SOSS. And considering the entire #FSDL, which either stands for #FreeSoftware development lifecycle. Or for #Fediverse solution delivery lifecycle.
Under SX software development involves service development, delivery, and exchange. Within commons based ecosystems and across them, to the broader public.
In SOSS + FSDL it is natural that you try to attract a #UX designer if you need one and not just sighed "If only a UX designer became a contributor", which I've often seen people do.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#sustainable-open-social-systems
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Totally. I am myself as technical person stuck in Yunohost because of all kinds of upgrade issues. The "bring together" on a holistic basis is exactly what I do applied research on with Social experience design i.e. #SX.
In the case of #FOSS that means transitioning (or rather evolving) towards #SOSS. And considering the entire #FSDL, which either stands for #FreeSoftware development lifecycle. Or for #Fediverse solution delivery lifecycle.
Under SX software development involves service development, delivery, and exchange. Within commons based ecosystems and across them, to the broader public.
In SOSS + FSDL it is natural that you try to attract a #UX designer if you need one and not just sighed "If only a UX designer became a contributor", which I've often seen people do.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#sustainable-open-social-systems
-
Totally. I am myself as technical person stuck in Yunohost because of all kinds of upgrade issues. The "bring together" on a holistic basis is exactly what I do applied research on with Social experience design i.e. #SX.
In the case of #FOSS that means transitioning (or rather evolving) towards #SOSS. And considering the entire #FSDL, which either stands for #FreeSoftware development lifecycle. Or for #Fediverse solution delivery lifecycle.
Under SX software development involves service development, delivery, and exchange. Within commons based ecosystems and across them, to the broader public.
In SOSS + FSDL it is natural that you try to attract a #UX designer if you need one and not just sighed "If only a UX designer became a contributor", which I've often seen people do.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#sustainable-open-social-systems
-
Totally. I am myself as technical person stuck in Yunohost because of all kinds of upgrade issues. The "bring together" on a holistic basis is exactly what I do applied research on with Social experience design i.e. #SX.
In the case of #FOSS that means transitioning (or rather evolving) towards #SOSS. And considering the entire #FSDL, which either stands for #FreeSoftware development lifecycle. Or for #Fediverse solution delivery lifecycle.
Under SX software development involves service development, delivery, and exchange. Within commons based ecosystems and across them, to the broader public.
In SOSS + FSDL it is natural that you try to attract a #UX designer if you need one and not just sighed "If only a UX designer became a contributor", which I've often seen people do.
https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#sustainable-open-social-systems
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I built a free tools website with:
No login
No signup
No adsJust open → use → close.
Because simple tasks shouldn’t feel complicated.
I shared the full story here:
https://qr.ae/pCja9F -
I am admin of about 20 public #SignalGroup.s , here is how we do it:
- we use the "nickname" and "note" feature to mark people as spam, write down bad behavior etc.
- we have public links, all require admin permission to join
- we have a separate "Introduction Room" group where we add everyone requesting to join. They need to follow steps in the group description, have a profile pic and name that imply they are "kinda human" and introduce themselves in a human way. This works surprisingly well and we have no spammers since then
- we also collect the IDs of malicious users following these steps (https://github.com/Whatnoww/ACI-Blocklist), which is currently very tedious but the only persistent identifier afaik. That ID is then used by SignalAssistant which warns about malicious users requesting to join a group
- we keep track of behavior indicating that users are human in the user notes
- to protect against higher effort scrapers (that employ humans or sophisticated bots that bypass our checks, and then are inactive and just scan all messages), we make a post, tagging all users and requiring some form of response (which serves as a captcha in its own, like "green non-edible emoji")
- alternatively, deleting a group, making a new one and telling everyone to migrate is an effective way to remove inactive ones or bots. But as following links is likely well implemented in bots, this would require manual re-checking
The amount of tech-illiteracy varies a lot (or we get users new to Signal) which means we need to make excuses quite often.
Also, Signal has a lot of features helping here, but also lacks some UX polish:
- seeing and sharing user IDs with people to have a blocklist that actually does something
- and/or sharing user notes and nicknames with other people
- pinning messages (no need to tag all users or write sensitive stuff in the group description readable for others)
- a setting to allow users to only see admins in a group and nobody else (privacy of everyone else in the "Introduction Room")
- separate Admin and Moderator rights. This is huge, as maintenance requires lots of admins, but the current system makes takeovers easy
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I am admin of about 20 public #SignalGroup.s , here is how we do it:
- we use the "nickname" and "note" feature to mark people as spam, write down bad behavior etc.
- we have public links, all require admin permission to join
- we have a separate "Introduction Room" group where we add everyone requesting to join. They need to follow steps in the group description, have a profile pic and name that imply they are "kinda human" and introduce themselves in a human way. This works surprisingly well and we have no spammers since then
- we also collect the IDs of malicious users following these steps (https://github.com/Whatnoww/ACI-Blocklist), which is currently very tedious but the only persistent identifier afaik. That ID is then used by SignalAssistant which warns about malicious users requesting to join a group
- we keep track of behavior indicating that users are human in the user notes
- to protect against higher effort scrapers (that employ humans or sophisticated bots that bypass our checks, and then are inactive and just scan all messages), we make a post, tagging all users and requiring some form of response (which serves as a captcha in its own, like "green non-edible emoji")
- alternatively, deleting a group, making a new one and telling everyone to migrate is an effective way to remove inactive ones or bots. But as following links is likely well implemented in bots, this would require manual re-checking
The amount of tech-illiteracy varies a lot (or we get users new to Signal) which means we need to make excuses quite often.
Also, Signal has a lot of features helping here, but also lacks some UX polish:
- seeing and sharing user IDs with people to have a blocklist that actually does something
- and/or sharing user notes and nicknames with other people
- pinning messages (no need to tag all users or write sensitive stuff in the group description readable for others)
- a setting to allow users to only see admins in a group and nobody else (privacy of everyone else in the "Introduction Room")
- separate Admin and Moderator rights. This is huge, as maintenance requires lots of admins, but the current system makes takeovers easy
-
I am admin of about 20 public #SignalGroup.s , here is how we do it:
- we use the "nickname" and "note" feature to mark people as spam, write down bad behavior etc.
- we have public links, all require admin permission to join
- we have a separate "Introduction Room" group where we add everyone requesting to join. They need to follow steps in the group description, have a profile pic and name that imply they are "kinda human" and introduce themselves in a human way. This works surprisingly well and we have no spammers since then
- we also collect the IDs of malicious users following these steps (https://github.com/Whatnoww/ACI-Blocklist), which is currently very tedious but the only persistent identifier afaik. That ID is then used by SignalAssistant which warns about malicious users requesting to join a group
- we keep track of behavior indicating that users are human in the user notes
- to protect against higher effort scrapers (that employ humans or sophisticated bots that bypass our checks, and then are inactive and just scan all messages), we make a post, tagging all users and requiring some form of response (which serves as a captcha in its own, like "green non-edible emoji")
- alternatively, deleting a group, making a new one and telling everyone to migrate is an effective way to remove inactive ones or bots. But as following links is likely well implemented in bots, this would require manual re-checking
The amount of tech-illiteracy varies a lot (or we get users new to Signal) which means we need to make excuses quite often.
Also, Signal has a lot of features helping here, but also lacks some UX polish:
- seeing and sharing user IDs with people to have a blocklist that actually does something
- and/or sharing user notes and nicknames with other people
- pinning messages (no need to tag all users or write sensitive stuff in the group description readable for others)
- a setting to allow users to only see admins in a group and nobody else (privacy of everyone else in the "Introduction Room")
- separate Admin and Moderator rights. This is huge, as maintenance requires lots of admins, but the current system makes takeovers easy
-
I am admin of about 20 public #SignalGroup.s , here is how we do it:
- we use the "nickname" and "note" feature to mark people as spam, write down bad behavior etc.
- we have public links, all require admin permission to join
- we have a separate "Introduction Room" group where we add everyone requesting to join. They need to follow steps in the group description, have a profile pic and name that imply they are "kinda human" and introduce themselves in a human way. This works surprisingly well and we have no spammers since then
- we also collect the IDs of malicious users following these steps (https://github.com/Whatnoww/ACI-Blocklist), which is currently very tedious but the only persistent identifier afaik. That ID is then used by SignalAssistant which warns about malicious users requesting to join a group
- we keep track of behavior indicating that users are human in the user notes
- to protect against higher effort scrapers (that employ humans or sophisticated bots that bypass our checks, and then are inactive and just scan all messages), we make a post, tagging all users and requiring some form of response (which serves as a captcha in its own, like "green non-edible emoji")
- alternatively, deleting a group, making a new one and telling everyone to migrate is an effective way to remove inactive ones or bots. But as following links is likely well implemented in bots, this would require manual re-checking
The amount of tech-illiteracy varies a lot (or we get users new to Signal) which means we need to make excuses quite often.
Also, Signal has a lot of features helping here, but also lacks some UX polish:
- seeing and sharing user IDs with people to have a blocklist that actually does something
- and/or sharing user notes and nicknames with other people
- pinning messages (no need to tag all users or write sensitive stuff in the group description readable for others)
- a setting to allow users to only see admins in a group and nobody else (privacy of everyone else in the "Introduction Room")
- separate Admin and Moderator rights. This is huge, as maintenance requires lots of admins, but the current system makes takeovers easy
-
I am admin of about 20 public #SignalGroup.s , here is how we do it:
- we use the "nickname" and "note" feature to mark people as spam, write down bad behavior etc.
- we have public links, all require admin permission to join
- we have a separate "Introduction Room" group where we add everyone requesting to join. They need to follow steps in the group description, have a profile pic and name that imply they are "kinda human" and introduce themselves in a human way. This works surprisingly well and we have no spammers since then
- we also collect the IDs of malicious users following these steps (https://github.com/Whatnoww/ACI-Blocklist), which is currently very tedious but the only persistent identifier afaik. That ID is then used by SignalAssistant which warns about malicious users requesting to join a group
- we keep track of behavior indicating that users are human in the user notes
- to protect against higher effort scrapers (that employ humans or sophisticated bots that bypass our checks, and then are inactive and just scan all messages), we make a post, tagging all users and requiring some form of response (which serves as a captcha in its own, like "green non-edible emoji")
- alternatively, deleting a group, making a new one and telling everyone to migrate is an effective way to remove inactive ones or bots. But as following links is likely well implemented in bots, this would require manual re-checking
The amount of tech-illiteracy varies a lot (or we get users new to Signal) which means we need to make excuses quite often.
Also, Signal has a lot of features helping here, but also lacks some UX polish:
- seeing and sharing user IDs with people to have a blocklist that actually does something
- and/or sharing user notes and nicknames with other people
- pinning messages (no need to tag all users or write sensitive stuff in the group description readable for others)
- a setting to allow users to only see admins in a group and nobody else (privacy of everyone else in the "Introduction Room")
- separate Admin and Moderator rights. This is huge, as maintenance requires lots of admins, but the current system makes takeovers easy
-
*sigh* #Atlassian #Jira, that 21% of my team mates uses Figma doesn't automatically mean I need it.
Why does Atlassian have thus urge to push noise all over the services they provides. I just want to do my job, not being distracted by stuff I don't want to care about right now.
This is such poor #UX experience.
-
*sigh* #Atlassian #Jira, that 21% of my team mates uses Figma doesn't automatically mean I need it.
Why does Atlassian have thus urge to push noise all over the services they provides. I just want to do my job, not being distracted by stuff I don't want to care about right now.
This is such poor #UX experience.
-
*sigh* #Atlassian #Jira, that 21% of my team mates uses Figma doesn't automatically mean I need it.
Why does Atlassian have thus urge to push noise all over the services they provides. I just want to do my job, not being distracted by stuff I don't want to care about right now.
This is such poor #UX experience.