Rosano / Journal

10 entries for July 2026

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Sunday, July 5, 2026

Saturday, July 4, 2026

[Jargon is an indicator of high-resolution conversation between those inside domain. It may exclude people outside, but that doesn't it should be avoided inside. Help newcomers quickly get up to speed and they'll be happy to join in.]

[The experiment suggests that participants chose cake afterwards not only because their challenging cognitive task required more calories, but also because the same process drained their willpower to resist. There's only one pool for both.]

Every moment spent struggling with a confusing UI, frustrating customer service, poor documentation, or anything requiring patience, self-control, or intense concentration on the tool could be stealing resources from learning, practice, and becoming badass at the thing they really care about: the context.

The Zeigarnik Effect means cognitive resources are being consumed in the background while you’re doing other things. The more open/unfinished tasks that are running in the background, the less resources are available for focusing, practicing, and learning.

[Marketing materials focus on the compelling context, while remaining easy to understand. Learning content focuses on the tool, and the dry or hard to read material gets interpreted by the brain as spam.]

[Asking "Why?", "So what?, and "Who cares?" can help reframe unfocused material so that the brain says "worthy".]

[Easier for their brain is good, but less is better: is that element truly necessary?]

Part of: Kathy Sierra: Badass — Making Users Awesome.

[Reading a physical book gives me a choice to turn the page, look away, put it down, and trust that it will be as I left it when coming back.]

Friday, July 3, 2026

Thursday, July 2, 2026

On the Regular

Another nice thing about being a regular at a place that values regulars is that you meet the other regulars. This summer I was often left to my own devices for dinner and a couple times a week, I ended up at my local. And almost without exception, I ended up having dinner with someone I’d previously met at the bar. Routinely turning a solo dining experience into dinner with a friend is an amazing accomplishment for a restaurant.

Please Use AI

be sure to use AI when your next child
gets married, so that you can write them
the perfect toast or poem or speech or song
because no one wants to hear your
words, the actual poorly written words
of a parent (you) who changed
hundreds of diapers for said child or fed
them in the middle of the
night from your actual body. Or cried
when they were late home because
you were positive they were dead. We don't
want those words—we’d prefer the sterile
words of a machine that never lived, never
had an original thought, never felt
the pain of miscarriage or broken
relationships or the joy of a friendship restored

I’ll be over here in my 50th
year, my youngest daughter asleep on my chest,
my arm falling asleep because I dare not move
lest I scare away this moment,
lying here melancholy about my older
children moving out and my middle
children no longer needing me, at least
not like they used to, weary about this body
that fails me now in ever increasing ways
that will never be restored. Sighing
over stories I tried to write but never hit
the page the way they felt in my mind.

X: Claude Fable 5 will be available globally tomorrow!

X: But what about safety?

Me: First you must decide who you are focused on protecting? Users, citizens or existing power structures and specifically, which ones? The paths are not the same. Market benefit rarely coincides with social benefit.

Wednesday, July 1, 2026