Done yesterday (20111220 Tu)

[mdlbear]

LJ Release 88 is out, complete with sucky comment pages. There are nearly 5000 comments on the release announcement; it'll probably be over by the time I post this. Why they did this is just absolutely baffling. What, were they thinking? Yet another triumph of "design" over usability. Them and Gnome 3.

I tried installing the lxde desktop on Cygnus; it looks ok and is fast, but doesn't seem to have a network manager applet, so it's useless. It would work well on a hardwired, low-resource machine like one of the old Thinkpads, though. I'd already given up on xfce because, for all its flaws, I like my Gnome2 layout better.

A lot of the morning was spent at Kaiser, getting a new glasses prescription and an EKG. The optometrist also noticed that I have blepharitis in my left eye. Which I'd already noticed. Have to work on that.

I also mailed a package of holiday gifts, having given up trying to gift-wrap them in favor of getting them actually, you know, in the mail. I don't know what it is about gift-wrapping, but I always leave it for the last minute -- or beyond.

I also took a walk, and got a reasonable amount done at work. So... good.

In the links, Mexico's Mayan region launches apocalypse countdown. Tom Smith pointed out that there were Only 367 Shopping Days Left -- it would be 366, now. Happy apocalypse. Hmm. Maybe LJ is celebrating it a year early?

1220 Tu
  * up 6:35; W=197.2; drugs, nose, teeth, 
  @ Obsolete files | Files That Last 
  * 9am optometry Kaiser Santa Clara dept 486 Dr. Tapia
    -> blepharitis in L. eye.  Suggests cleaning with q-tip and baby shampoo 
  ~ giving up on xfce for now -- my gnome layout works better ATM.
  * EKG - cardiology (348)
  * mail package to N & the kids.
    ~ gave up on trying to gift-wrap.
  * move ~/bin to /users/steve, so it's easily synced, but optional.  Prune.
  * walk:  2+mi; Whole Foods and the park.
    WF had Method free+clear laundry detergent and 100% buckwheat soba.  Win. 
  & install lxde on cygnus.  May as well try it.  Looks good; fast as a bat.
    No access to network manager, so no WiFi.  :P Totally useless.
    Would work well on a low-end machine like the Eee or old TP, though.
  @ Mexico Mayan region launches apocalypse countdown - Yahoo! News 
    (filkertom: Only 367 Shopping Days Left)
  * configured ij for Chaos; nova seems not to be sharing printers, for no
    obvious reason.  Very weird.
  % 9ish sleepy.  May splat early
  : LJ Release 88 is out, complete with sucky comment pages.  *curses*
  & fast from 9pm for labs We.

Comments

[solarbird]

Yet another triumph of "design" over usability.
I want to emphasis something people with a geek background don't typically get.

This is bad design.

Design has good and bad, just like engineering. Design in some ways is a kind of engineering, insofar as visual arts go. And this is bad design.

Just sayin'.

[kyrielle]

The LJ release is a disaster and has been since before it went live, the furor over it started well prior to go live and igrick has been a complete %#!@$ about it, too, in his journal and on Twitter. This goes beyond "bad design" (though it is that) into something else.

Subjects "aren't useful" and igrick doesn't like seeing "(No subject)" so much when people DON'T put a subject, so the solution is to get rid of all subjects and no longer have that text at all, apparently.

Given his attitude toward his customers? Yeah, I'm not impressed. I am in fact more furious about that than the comment page - and considering it ditches preview, spell check, easy selection of icons by keywords (that gui display can take forever to load for some people, plus having to 'search' and select), accessibility for some users, as well as subjects? Yeah, considering that, I'm pretty upset by the change itself. But his attitude is worse.

[mdlbear]

Oh, good! Turning on the "custom comment style" option gets me a usable comment page. Of course, what you have to do on http://www.livejournal.com/customize/options.bml is select "no" for "Disable customized comment pages for your journal".

Because this is livejournal we're talking about here. IDIOTS!

[kyrielle]

Yep. And if you also view all journals in your style, you can also have that usable comment page everywhere.

At least, until they roll this out to S2. Igrick is talking about that as a next step but some communities (fandom, I think, for example) would maybe be immune because of the yelling.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!