Category Archives: design rationale

I made a mistake; here’s what you can do to fix it!

23 Tuesday Sep 2025

Posted by in America, design rationale, HCI, psychology, Uncategorized, user experience

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Recovering from recently moved across the country, fixing up our new house, dealing with a huge moving van fire, health and family issues, I found myself with 45 seconds of uncommitted time, so I was **thrilled** to get a wonderful form letter from American Express informing me that a credit card I had cancelled about five years ago nonetheless had been compromised and it was up to me to take a series of time-consuming steps.  At last!! Something to do!! How thoughtful!   If all goes well, this would not only eat up the 45 seconds of free time but about 45 additional days.  Of course, all of these steps require either going on-line or calling an 800 number so we KNOW that all will NOT go well.  Going to a website generally means getting an account with a user name and email address.  These may be the  same or different depending on the site.  You can pretty much bet PeterSIronwood and Peter Ironwood and PIronwood are already taken so I will end up with some completely impossible to recall username like IPeterIWoodIS437.  Of course, I can regenerate my username by merely answering three simple security questions such as, “What is your favorite movie star?”  I don’t know.  Or, worse, it changes from day to day.  Maybe the people who made up these security questions have a favorite movie star that they keep constant for their entire 23 year lives.  But I don’t. “Where did you grow up?”  What makes you think I grew up?  And, what makes you sure it was in one place?  And, even if it was in one place, which is the exact spelling I used last time: “SanDiego”, “San Diego”, “San_Diego”, “San Diego, CA”, “San Diego, California”, “California”, “SoCal”, etc. etc. Of course, I could take the OTHER route and call an 800 number.  “We’re sorry.  All of our agents are helping other customers.  Due to unusual call volumes, your call may take longer to answer than usual.  Your estimated wait time is 5.5 centuries.  But meanwhile, you can listen to really loud, really repetitious, soul-sucking low-fidelity music.  This century’s selection is entitled, “The Dementor’s Theme Song.” You know what? If YOU screw up YOU fix it!  Don’t impose on ME to fix it.

The Walkabout Diaries

The First Ring of Empathy

Travels with Sadie 1

Siren Song

The Bull Dazzle Man

The Truth Train

Absolute is not Just a Vodka

Essays on America: The Game

Where does your Loyalty Lie?

My Cousin Bobby

Wednesday

The Stopping Rule

The Update Problem

Interview with a Giant Slug

As Gold as it Gets

The Walkabout Diaries: Natural Variations

20 Wednesday Dec 2023

Posted by in design rationale, nature, science

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Weather in San Diego is typically nice almost every day. Today is no exception, but that doesn’t mean that the weather is boring. There is a lot of natural variation. There is variation in the humidity, in the wind, in the position of the sun, in the heat, in the (fairly rare) precipitation.

Reflecting on this reminded me of another kind of natural variation: the variation in organisms of the same species. Without that variation, evolution would be far less effective.

It also reminds me of several of the characteristics of natural beauty and good design that Christopher Alexander writes about.

Things that have zero variation are mechanical, predictable, repetitive, and generally not very pleasing aesthetically. Mindless, endless repetition is aligned with death. Variation is aligned with life, freedom, creativity, growth, and joy.

Among things that are non-living artifacts, there is still a variation in how variable they are. Walls made of stone, are by their nature, “rougher” and more variable (and more beautiful) than walls made of bricks. Walls made of bricks are more irregular and beautiful than one made of solid steel. Similarly, at least to me, fences made of wood are more variable and beautiful than fences made of metal.

Building elements that make up a wooden deck show grain and irregularities in the surface of the deck. In addition, however, they even have interesting variability below the deck as shown here.

You can also see in this photo below a variety of materials. The stucco, by its very nature, more interesting and variable than steel or plaster.

In these photos, you can see variation within leaves, among the leaves of a particular plant, and also among the plants themselves. Each plant and each part of the plant grows in accordance to its genetic blueprint. Except a “blueprint” is itself too fixed and unbending to be an appropriate metaphor. The growth will depend on the context–water sources, light sources, nutrients in the soil, other nearby plants and rocks will all play a part in how, precisely, a particular plant grows.

It would be absurd for one plant to say to itself: “Every plant should be just like me! I have a plan based on what works for me and everyone should do exactly what I do!”

Fifteen Properties of Beauty

Absolute is not just a vodka

Life is a dance

The Orange Man

Three Blind Mice

The Walkabout Diaries, symphony

The Walkabout Diaries, how beautiful

The Walkabout Diaries the life of the party

Author Page on Amazon

Sunday Sonnet: Promise Me Prom

19 Sunday Feb 2023

Posted by in design rationale, fiction, poetry

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Here’s the context of the sonnet below. It is written by a sixteen year old fictional character who is nerdy, smart, and a bit on the Asperger’s spectrum. He’s also not a very experienced poet. But what I try to show is that he improves a little as he goes, falling back to teenhood toward the end of the poem. Why doesn’t he just keep improving? Because when he gets close to the true nature of love in lines 7-11, he realizes if he keeps going with this, he will be changed forever. He’s giving up partial control of his life to someone else. And it scares him so he backs off from that and just tries to show off how he can write a sonnet and be cool and funny. 

Ultimately, I may or may not include the poem in the novel. If I do, I’d be inclined to add the inner dialogue of the Main Character as he’s creating the poem. I can see it getting too tedious for the reader. By the way, Edgar Allan Poe wrote a lengthy and detailed design rationale for “The Raven.” Notwithstanding that fact, there are many other folks who have a different interpretation. That’s fine. But it does remind me that if I do write a design rationale, it’s not as though everyone will say, “Oh, well that’s that then. The author has gone and told us what he meant and why he did what he did. What more to be said?” 

And, of course, people do go on and there is more to be said because we know intuitively that none of us knows our complete design rationale. Others see patterns in our behavior that offer quite different hypotheses about why we do what we do. It doesn’t mean that they are right and we are wrong, but it does offer an opportunity to learn—about them as well as ourselves.

Promise me Prom

I really love the way you always smell

Like soap and flowers, pie, fresh bread.

Your sweat itself smells swell and sweet.

Which proves I think you’re competently bred. 

Your hand is warm—I want to gently hold

In mine and you will feel my love is true.

We each will be both molded and be mold.

Your grip is gentle breeze upon the blue. 

Your grip is strong and long and steady steel.

Your eyes are portals to the worlds-to-be

I want to know it: what you know and feel.

I want to be yours for eternity.

Let’s you and I become both ROM and COM

I’d love to have you date me for the PROM!

————-

Sonnet on Sadie

Sonnet on Shadows

Sonnet about Sadie

Alito and the Egg

Sonnet about the Extreme Court

Sonnet about V. Putrid

After All

Dance of Billions