Fluxion

History of the Button

Wow, this site sure is dusty, musty, and a little bit rusty.

Thank you for visiting Fluxion, but visit me over at History of the Button. That's where I'm currently writing about the history of interaction design by focusing on buttons, from flashlights to websites.

turning 40

So today I turned 40. Holy smokes.

It's actually not so bad. The nearest thing I'm having to a mid-life crisis is listening to The Clash's first album in the headphones as I start my work day. But that's just an indulgence.

I definitely learned something at 30. I hated turning 30, went into complete denial. No party. No celebration. Just a quiet dinner with Sam. Thirty really felt old. But afterwards I regretted not celebrating it somehow and vowed that at 40 I wouldn't make the same mistake.

And somehow I'm not. Big party planned for tonight. But more importantly, I feel comfortable at 40. In fact, it's a bit of a release. As you progress into the decades, the peripheral distractions slip to the sides and that pressure of time lets you focus on the things you really want to.

Sounds good at least.

Happy Birthday Me.

overheard

Overheard yesterday on the street, from a woman on a cell phone:

"Cut that Cialis in half!"

The mind reels.

reading chinese

Elderly man reads a Chinese book on the 4 bus as I head downtown for another day at work. I watch him read because that's what there is to do on the bus. I watch and wait to see how he turns the page. Will he turn to the left or to the right? In the hustle of the morning, showering, eating breakfast, packing my bag, I have forgotten if Chinese reads left-to-right or right-to-left. These are the things that haunt me in the morning. I'd probably remember after another cup of coffee, but they don't sell it on the bus. Yet.

For ten or fifteen bus stops and over the river, I stare at the upper right corner of his book, waiting with a touch of OCD to see if when how he turns the page. I can't miss the motion, index finger gripping the corner, sliding down exactly one sheet to execute the fluid pinch and turn as he moves to the next page to see what's next. But for this man, is next to the left or the right? Do we share the same cultural metaphors where "next" means "to the right"? Does the back button in a web browser not match his sense of forward and backward? And if we believe that "right" is "forward", why does the right wing always want to go backward?

Younger woman sits next to elderly man and partially blocks my view of the drama. She occasionally lifts her arm up just enough to cover her mouth and cough, just enough to temporarily block my view of the page not turning. If I miss the one key moment, I'll have to start over and probably just google the answer when I get to work. At this point, I become aware of how ridiculous I am. I'm staring and waiting for a man to turn a page. I have placed my entire cultural understanding of east versus west on whether this man will turn the page to the left or right. But hey, I made it this far and I'm curious and it's something to do on the 4 bus as I head downtown for another day at work.

Why is this taking so long to finish one page? Ahhh, density. Each character is a word, a complete concept, a self-contained something, so it takes up less space. It can say "gasoline" in the space of a "g". Reading is a slower exercise, a forced patience, a waking meditation. The thoughts and concepts stream at the same speed, without all the physical racing through the page. It makes you slow down to savor the ideas in front of you, instead of speeding up to see what's next. Could the simple characters of language cause one culture to have patience while another to be in a hurry?

I finally notice that the line endings are ragged right, not left, implying a left-to-right orientation. Sure enough, right after that, he places his right index finger in the upper right corner I've been staring at, pinches the corner, and turns the page to the left, to the "done" pile, and moves on to savor the unknown of the next.

redefining home

Holy smokes we just bought a house. Well, two weeks ago, but who's counting? After 12 years in the same house, nearly tying my stability record (same house K-12), I'm finally moving to a different home.

What's more important, WE are moving to a different home, the first home that we bought together as a couple, which has been both fun and tricky. Tricky because we have to discover through the process what it is we really want out of a home. Fun because when it's it, it's really IT.

But now it's in that awful stage of buying a home, the negotiation over fixes on the inspection. I just want to be done with it and move in, but now the banks and escrows and title insurances have to all do their thing. Glad I'm not doing it. We've got enough to do with all the sorting and packing and purging and selling on ebaying.

Purging is simultaneously exhilirating and painful, the pleasure of looking at a random doo-dad, realizing I've held onto it for twenty years, wonder why, and then finding a happy new home for it, even if it is the trash can, goodwill bag, or recycling bin. Do I really need these bank statements from 1990? What about this cassette tape of something I have as MP3? See ya. Too much stuff puts a hulky psychic wight on your noggin that you don't even realize is there.

And we're going to need to trim down in a big way, because the new house is smaller. Er, more sustainable. We made a deliberate decision to try to live simpler, and finding a home that matches how we live. Wonderful and scary.

ghost town

Yeah, so it's been a ghost town here lately. Tumbleweeds tumble across your screen. Saloon doors flappin in the wind. Sad, but that's life.

I'm working on reviving this. Really.

risk

Thirteen years ago last weekend, I packed all my important stuff into my 1983 Toyota pickup, found an I-5 on-ramp, and drove the one-way road trip to Portland. It was a bold move, uprooting myself to a city I had only seen once, when I was nine, through the Dodge van window on a family road trip up to Victoria BC. My only distinct memory of Oregon from that trip was the sign on the bridge spanning the mighty Columbia: �Now leaving Oregon. Come back soon.�

�Soon� spanned seventeen years, until I moved to Portland, a thousand-mile leap of faith in the unknown.

The drive was hard, at first. Emotional hard, not driving hard. The weepy first hour was driving looking backwards at the friends and family I left behind, wondering if this was wise. Somewhere on the Grapevine, Lake Castaic I believe, I pulled over at a Taco Bell and had to shut down and take a nap in the back of the truck. Upon waking, I fortified with a burrito and such and got back on the road. Refreshed, the world looked different. I drove looking forward, excited for the adventure. I regained faith in the unknown, trusting that I knew just enough: I had a job and a few friends waiting for me. Just enough security to make the unknown enticing.

Rare for me, I embraced the unknown. Risk has never been my middle name, but I was learning how to spell it.

I have that same feeling this week.

Last Monday, I began working a full-time position for the first time in nearly three years, setting aside my consulting practice forced upon me when the bubble popped in 2001. Fortunately, I had some good success along the way, working on fascinating projects with good, smart people. But the entire time, I couldn�t help debating the goods and bads between working on my own versus working for someone else. Stability versus flexibility.

Stability was the consistency, the benefits, knowing the steady paycheck would be there every other week. Flexibility was the freedom to pursue different projects and more or less make my own hours. Goods and bads on both sides. But somewhere along the way, the debate flipped in my head. Taking the job was the risk while freelancing was the security. With a steady stream of projects with a range of companies, having my own practice was the security while committing to one company in a sketchy economy was the risk. Classic investing logic: diversify, don�t put all your eggs in one omelette.

But I had hit a mental wall while consulting. I faced the difficulty of defining what my practice should be. With a variety of interests, as always, it became difficult to pick one specialty because the practice then became a limiting enterprise. Specialty is good, because being an expert has its obvious advantages, yet working on a diversity of projects is more stable in a flexible economy. Which to choose?

I started leaning toward full-time work as the economy seemed to pick up. And then an opportunity popped up that I couldn�t refuse. Voila, I�m back to work with employee manuals, benefits, business cards, pen holders, manila folders and a parking pass. It�s nice when it feels right.

But to loop my rambling back to the top, I�m rediscovering risk, ironically within stability of a full-time job. It really shouldn\'t be surprising that it�s easier to take risks when you�ve got solid footing. I mean, duh.

Another one-way road trip, taking a risk, trusting that the unknown will be interesting. And fun. And challenging.

Uh oh. Gotta go to work tomorrow.

ten seconds on SE 7th

I stopped at a red light on SE 7th, waiting to turn left onto Hawthorne, driving home from work. To my left was the animal shelter for vending machines, the cage where they go to rust and trade stories of glass bottles and silver quarters after vending their last Sprite, facing the street, hoping to drop one more Pepsi, or, on a sunny afternoon, a root beer.

Guy was coaxing a forklift, trying to jostle the tines under a Dr Pepper machine, flubbing like a boxer wrestling open a jar of peanut butter. Dude was a few feet in front of Guy\'s forklift, moving piles of boxes from here to there by hand. Guy wedged the tines in a wee bit, grabbed a little traction, and nudged the forklift forward.

The center of gravity shifted.

The Dr Pepper door flew open and swung toward Dude, moving piles of boxes from here to there by hand, facing away. Guy inched the forklift another tad. Momentum gained. Dr Pepper, with dreams of freedom rattling around like three quarters falling into a freshly emptied change bin, grabbed its big chance for escape.

Dr Pepper lunged forward, toward Dude, still moving piles of boxes from here to there by hand, still facing away. Dr Pepper, heavy enough to require a forklift to move, fell right toward, and maybe onto, Dude.

From the car, I could only watch, my heart on pause.

Dr Pepper smashed hard to the pavement, barely skimming Dude, like the wall falling onto Buster Keaton in Steamboat Bill Jr. Guy looked over, yelled \"are you okay?\" He missed him by this much.

I blinked to restart my heart. I looked into my rearview mirror at the driver behind me. His face wore the same ohmigod expression as mine. We nearly watched Dude die.

------------------

Ten seconds later, driving now on Hawthorne, a crow pulled a straw out of a Burgerville cup below a bus stop bench.

It was one of those minutes.

cold

Night has drawn its scheduled heroic breath, pulling the blankets over onto its side of the bed, and descended, once again, to the degree of cold known as butt. Wind has yawned eastward to reposition unseen a front yardful of magnolia leaves, earning the five dollars it was paid to do so. Frost is limbering its spiny legs, running through the opposite of warm-up drills during its preseason, content to annoy.

Upstairs is a meat locker, a heat sink, an ice rink, a case study in the thermodynamics of tearing off ninety years and four layers of roof and replacing it with just one. Computers trudged downstairs to slave to the humans in pajamas, working on their respective work, never stepping foot into the chill. Cats sought laps, unaware that a drop in temperature should change their behavior one bit.

Halloween happened, somewhere.

Snow is considering Portland, painfully aware that they\'ve grown apart, looks down and wants to pick up the phone and say hello, to drop down just a few hundred more feet, to lay down a blanket of boots and fleece and quiet. Portland would whisper back hello, and embrace the chill.

November is here.

koi story

One day last fall, I was on koi duty. K&F (two friends, not the coffee roaster) had just moved abroad and their new renters were arriving in Portland in a few days. During the gap in occupancy, I was helping to look after their koi pond and feed the big fat speckled beauties. No problem. They didn\'t need to be taken for a walk or scratched under the chin. They just needed some Koi Chow.

Driving to their house, my thoughts kicked the dust off a pile of memories stored under years of work and other adult life. I was a kid again. The neighbors next door, my first introduction to all things Japanese, had a koi pond. I would often peer over the fence to, along with our wide-eyed cat Sugar, watch the koi swim about and live simple fish lives. Their pond was very traditional Japanese, complete with a red bridge, a pagoda, and bonsai trees. Watching over the koi was the Buddha. There was something about that Buddha. The contented look on his face let you know everything was okay. That look, that beatified serene look, offered a young me the first glimpse of a spiritual face providing comfort instead of anguishing in pain.

K&F\'s koi pond was far more modern than my old neighbor\'s, an urban rock garden looking out to the West Hills. These koi were the true residents of the house, swimming there for several years before K&F bought the house. Some homes come with appliances. Others with koi ponds.

I thought I\'d first check out the koi before hunting for their food. You know, say hi. Maybe their food was next to the pond. I walked into the backyard, down a set of stairs, and turned the corner. Thinking back to it, the memory of turning left at that corner embellishes itself with a twang of tension, slowing down, the wind waltzing the trees, Clint Eastwood stepping out from behind the saloon, his spurs ching ching in the silence of a town hiding behind the table, the intake of breath between a wine goblet slipping and shattering, as I anticipate in memory the next split second when my day went from la-dee-da to yoinks.

But at the time, I just turned the corner.

The pond sat amidst a nice lush garden, well-watered. The pond itself was... um, empty. Drained, no water, nada. No, nearly empty. Three koi, dead, lined the rocks below. Late fish, pining for the fjords.

Yoinks!

I had one of those moments, unexpected and unprepared for, where all you can do is stand and stare for a minute, jaw sagging in disbelief. Everything halts as you realize the next hour is going to be a bizarre experience, one you never thought you\'d check off the list in the big scavenger hunt called life. Indeed, an experience you didn\'t even know was on the list.

Where did the water go? It hadn\'t been hot that week, it even rained a bit, so it didn\'t evaporate. A garden hose trailed from a spigot above down into the pool, making me wonder if they had to periodically refill it because, because, yes, because they had a leak. And the leak probably burst. Damn.

I sat on the bench and grieved a moment.

Take a moment.

Okay, time to deal with three dead koi. Lucky for me their demise was recent; otherwise I\'d be in a world of stink. I pondered my options.

1. Pretend I saw nothing, back away slowly, and walk away whistling something comforting. Nah, too irresponsible.

2. The lack of giant toilets ruled out the traditional goldfish method.

3. Leave them for critters to munch on, closing the cycle of nature. Tempting and easy, a moral rationalization for option 1, but I assumed the smell would haunt the neighbors within a day. Not too polite.

4. Bury them on the property somewhere. Nope, that would attract raccoons.

5. Bag them up and dump them elsewhere. Major mafia overtones: \"Louie, you\'ll be sleeping with the fishes.\"

6. Eat them.

So where do they keep the bags?

Not seeing any better option, I bag them up, take them for a drive, and find the first dumpster. I felt really stupid for giving these lovely koi a burial lacking pomp or honor, but what else could I do?

A few days later, I told the koi story to a mutual friend who had been to K&F\'s house many times. When I got to the part where I see three dead koi lying on the rocks of the empty pool, he asked,

\"How many koi?\"

\"Three.\"

\"There were nine or ten!\"

Wow. Nearest we figured, the pool did indeed leak and drain, drowning the koi in air. In the aftermath, raccoons came to haul away the bounty until only three remained. Imagine if I had waited another day to feed them and the raccoons had finished off the last three. I\'d arrive to discover a koi pond with no pond and no koi. Yoinks?

Leaving the poor koi for the raccoons may have been the best option after all. How could I know? I\'m a city boy.