Scrivener’s spelling dictionary has Ceausescu but not Barack Obama. I thought about that, about how it was probably before 2008 when they purchased some “vetted” dictionary or forked a public one with a good reputation. And I thought about the problem of maintaining a dictionary in this climate of siloed yet cloudy “apps” and how they fail the farther away from the human touch their code capabilities and interface progress.
6 Likes
So the fire alarm has been firing periodic pain-stabs. Apparently, this can sometimes be a signal to replace the battery. And a way to keep people from being able to replace the battery.
5 Likes
Does anyone know of a way to get exact results from search engines? same punctuation, because sometimes “word-word” is different from “word, word” and I’m getting hundreds of results with “word, word” which aren’t relevant.
3 Likes
Last time ours started that insane beeping, we had to go get a new 9-volt battery, not having a spare around. Finally, climbed up, dismantled the thing, put the new battery in. The beeping continued. Turned out it wasn’t the fire alarm after all, but the carbon monoxide alarm that happened to be in the same hallway (but somewhat hidden). Dismantled it, went and got some AAAs, and replaced the batteries. It kept beeping. Turns out it was signalling end-of-life needs-replacement, but to figure that out you had to time and count the beeps. So then we had to go back out and get a new carbon monoxide alarm. Altogether it was hours of beeping and guessing what the beeps meant. How hard would it be for them to include one or two more LEDs for ‘needs battery’ or ‘needs replacement’ or ‘all ok’?
7 Likes
Also, fire and flood alarms that sound exactly like certain types of tinnitus. Last year, when the alarm was still a couple floors away, I dismissed it as tinnitus. Last night, trouble sleeping.
3 Likes
Sympathy here, as a fellow tinnitus haver. (I don’t say sufferer, because most times it doesn’t bother me. Brain compensates somewhat.) Mine was from a diving incident; I landed in the water wrong and the water pressure messed up my ear. I was extremely dizzy for two or three hours, and left with the ringing. Fortunately no hearing loss from that (now I have it from age, and too-loud music no doubt).
But having an alarm sound like it sounds dangerous!
5 Likes
Exactly. It’s less likely to sound like tinitus if it isn’t a continuous ringing. It’s also less likely to trap people if it has good long pauses between the rings and/or flashes.
I’d suggest gradually increasing for 30 seconds, gradually decreasing for 30 seconds, pausing for 60 seconds, repeat.
4 Likes
Or better yet…
…although that would have to be personalized to an individual.
6 Likes
There are times that my mother’s voice warning me of a fire would have brought a smile to my face as I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
6 Likes
No Google, de mobilisation is not a synonym of demobilisation.
1 Like
I can’t say modals give me headaches but I can say that in my opinion most cases modals are just masking bad design.
One of the things I’ve tried to take on in my day job is removing modals from the UI I work with and replace them with less intrusive experiences.
Modals should be reserved only for exceptionally bad things happening that deserve to block the rest of the UI. Most of the time they are just lazy.
4 Likes
I’ve had basically lifelong tinnitus but no real hearing loss (other than in the specific range of the ringing obviously) - in fact last time I had a hearing test the audiologist was surprised at my superhuman hearing in my right ear (sadly only normal hearing in my left).
But the goddamn ringing drives me crazy sometimes. Since I can’t remember a time in my life where it hasn’t existed I can comfortably say I’ve never experienced true silence. It seems completely idiopathic which sucks since nobody has been able to provide any treatment options. I can only imagine it getting worse as I get older.
I really value my hearing and try hard to preserve it. I always wear earplugs at concerts, avoid cranking up my headphones loud at work, and try to stay out of loud spaces.
8 Likes
I could say the same thing about vision: I’ve never seen pitch blackness, because below a certain light level, my vision is filled with static.
It doesn’t affect my eyesight in bright light, but even now, in a room with decent lighting, looking at a computer screen, I can see the static.
7 Likes
There’s a certain subset of modals-- definitely the most notable subset-- that punch users by swooping in from one side, or jittering, or something.
I haven’t found a way to block those modals without blocking all modals.
4 Likes
While I don’t have the same kind of visual sensitivites as you have am in full agreement that these kind of things suck (but probably for different reasons).
In general I just find these kind of superfluous animations to be incredibly irritating and time wasting. It seems like all to many designers like to feel all special with their “lol I made the thing move” UX. I’d rather have things be quick, responsive, and make sense.
I don’t know if you use Office or not but in Office 2013 they introduced a new “smooth typing” animation that made typed characters kind of glide on to the screen versus just appearing like they have for the past several decades. (I mean, how pedestrian, right?)
Here’s an example (not mine):
The instant I saw that I wanted to punch a hole in my monitor. I just hated how what I was typing and what was displayed on the screen made it feel like it was literally somebody else typing. I immediately went searching for the registry key to turn that abomination off and that’s now part of my standard “run me to customize a bunch of stuff on a new machine” script.
8 Likes
I don’t have tinnitus, but I have noticed that when things are silent I still hear music. It’s like I can just barely hear someone’s stereo from down the street or music from elsewhere in the building reverberating in the pipes. Vague techno-industrial sound usually, my mind tries to identify which song it is but can’t quite pin it down. I can almost, but not quite, hear lyrics. I attribute it to not wearing earplugs at concerts and sometimes listening to my headphones too loud. I consider myself lucky, it could be much worse than hearing ghost music.
6 Likes
I’m not sure I ever consciously note fed this before, but I have a feeling I will today.
Thanks.
4 Likes
Sorry to hear that. I wish more could be done about it; the only two treatments I’ve vaguely heard (?I?) about are some sort of sound masking (which I guess would require hearing aids or ear buds or something), and some sort of zinc medication maybe? I never investigated them because I’ve gotten used to my ringing.
Interesting. I had that when I first started on an SSRI for depression. I guess the extra serotonin (which I believe happens everywhere in the body, not just the brain) made neurons fire randomly in my retinae. The effect was temporary however; only a year or two.
You know I’ve noticed that on occasion – especially right after a Windows 10 alarm clock app goes off. If my headphones are on the desk, I can hear it faintly in addition to seeing the pop-up. After I dismiss it, I can sort of still hear it, but only till my attention switches to something else.
BTW, are these posts off-topic? I’d argue it’s still User Inconvenience, but of our bio-computers. Mine is desperately in need of an upgrade.
3 Likes
A 3rd option, to reduce tinnitus, is to avoid or cut back on salicylates.
3 Likes
Alas I’m on one for Crohn’s - mesalamine - but ironically I can’t take aspirin.
2 Likes