Thursday, 10 June 2021

Little annoyances and optimising your life

Since Blogger (owned by Google) implemented the upgrade of its interface last year, there have been several major improvements introduced that help me cut down the time taken to publish a new post. But there were also a few retrograde steps. 

One of these is to do with copy-pasting links.

[Bear with me here.] The new way requires the blogger to click on the link icon (or use keyboard shortcut Control + K). A dialogue box duly opens. This now requires me to drag the cursor into the box, then press Control + V to paste the link. Now, why couldn't the cursor already be in the box? (It used to be before the upgrade!) Why should I have to go dragging it there? Because there's another box, above it, with the text from which the link should go. But I've just highlighted that text! It should automatically appear in that box! (Again, as before.) And then there's the checking of  'Open this link in a new window'. Unless Blogger/Google actively wants to lose traffic to linked sites, this should be the default - not something I need to check! 

Anyway - my point is this. What once took one click to do after highlighting the text, now takes three, what took two seconds to do now takes six or seven. I may have to do this three, four times for any given post - an extra 15, 20 seconds tops - but over time it all these wasted seconds build up. And they annoy me. A bug or a feature?

What should I do? Send an email to Blogger/Google with my suggestions of how to optimise the interface in the hope that someone will see it and react? Or will they receive my email, nod, yawn, and just leave it unanswered? Say they do notice it and think - "yeah, that makes sense" - will they improve the interface straight away, or leave it until the next major upgrade in a couple of years' time? 

And so I left it, there being more pressing matters, as always, and so the wasted minutes pile on. Now, having taken a decision not to do anything, I cannot be annoyed at Blogger, Google or indeed myself every time I have to drag the cursor to the box and check the 'open this link in a new window' box.

A metaphor for so much that could be optimised in life - but it's easier to leave it as is. Don't sweat the small stuff. Leave it, procrastinate until nudged, live with life's imperfections, suffer them in silence - or take arms against this sea of troubles/And by opposing end them.

This time last year:
The 13th Thirteenth

This time two years ago:
Ghastly June day in London


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