Notices by Bruce Lawson ✅ (quiet time) (brucelawson@social.vivaldi.net), page 2

Languages with accents on letters should just stop it. If letters were meant to wear hats, or other ostentatious ornaments, they would have been born with them.

Approximately 3.3 billion people – almost half of humanity – now live in countries that spend more money paying interest on their debts than on education or health.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/13/nations-where-3-3bn-live-spend-more-on-debt-than-health-schools

Using the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in product descriptions reduces purchase intentions https://news.wsu.edu/press-release/2024/07/30/using-the-term-artificial-intelligence-in-product-descriptions-reduces-purchase-intentions/ "When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions,” he said. “We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products.”

A touching tribute to the 3 children murdered in Southport from the fascists who turned up to destroy a grieving community's garden walls to pelt a mosque with the bricks.

Anyone else get really vivid weird dreams when they're ill? I wake up feeling like I've been the protagonist in several action, horror and 1930s surrealist films.

More UK Windows set up fun. Naturally, Microsoft wants me to use Edge, so preinstalls it, telling me it's "best-performing". Opening it reminds me just how BEST-PERFORMING it is.Searching for "Vivaldi" (or Chrome) gives me a Bing message warning me that there's NO NEED to download another browser; Edge is the bee's nostrils. When I do download it and tell Windows to make it my default, I'm told "Before you switch Try Microsoft Edge-it's new, it's fast, and it's built for Windows 10".

It's as if Windows, Edge and Bing were somehow working together. I wonder what the connection is?

As I set up a Windows machine (in UK, so not EU) it becomes obvious that Microsoft really REALLY wants me to ENJOY all the fun of Office, and that not enjoying it is "limited experience".

It nags me again to add an account, so I choose "offline account". It's not *offline*, of course, it's just not connected to Microsoft Cloudwoo. Then it nags me through every stage of password choice, confirmation and 3 security questions "even better, use an online account", Nah, it's my machine mate.

I’m setting up a new Windows machine, and when I powered it up there was the sound of a melancholic woman singing sadly and playing piano. I called Support, and they told me not to worry - it’s just a Dell.

I've finally thought of a good use for "AI": a TV that can mute people like Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Putin, the Orange Hate Toad or Michael McIntyre and replace them with a large cuddly otter singing Tamla Motown hits in real time. VCs can contact me here.

The amazing thing about the whole Microsoft Recall debacle is that presumably not one of the mighty 7-figured salaries Industry Leading brains thought that what they were proposing was a shit idea.

I'm posting this photo because 35 years later, people in China and Hong Kong can't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre

82 people are running to be President of Iceland, at least 11 of them accidentally. "As a content designer, I was intrigued. How could so many people accidentally start a campaign for President of Iceland?" https://uxdesign.cc/how-do-you-accidentally-run-for-president-of-iceland-0d71a4785a1e

Why do marketing people get so obsessed about time someone spends on a page (with the assumption that longer=better because 'engagement')? Good IA should mean users find what they want quickly; good UX means quick ordering. Good copywriting means quick comprehension, doesn't it?

@TonyVladusich arrgghh

Enjoy these two concentric circles

My modest proposal: Failing water companies should go bankrupt, their investors lose everything, their boards and C-suites be fired, and the gov should buy them for £1 and run them as national utilities. Ditto the railways and privatised energy orgs that price-gouged us last 2 winters. Then every statue of Thatcher & her ideological allies should be melted down and turned into commemorative medals to celebrate the day we free ourselves of the stupidity that saw the nations' utilities and housing stock sold to profiteering wideboys.

Inclusive Sans is a text font designed for accessibility and readability https://www.oliviaking.com/inclusive-sans

If you filled in this PWA Death Survey BEFORE TODAY please RE-DO IT. We realise there was some important supplemental data we need to gather in order to argue our case but were (frankly) too shell-shocked to ask for the first time. Soz: it's for a good cause! (please boost for reach) https://open-web-advocacy.org/apple-attempts-killing-webapps/

Made pork & crackling with roast veg and cauliflower roasted in coconut milk and coriander

I'm having a conversation with a designer about icons. Making a screenreader read "camera" or "microphone" when an icon is shown is trivial with aria-label. But screenreader users are massively outnumbered by sighted users who might be confused by the meaning of a tiny image/ icon. The mighty Paul Annett explains more: