Today's words (#3)

[drwex]

Desert_born gave me control, usability, mystery, gaming, aggressive

control: one of the most important modifier keys in Ema... oh, you didn't mean that control? Sigh. OK, seriously. Control is a major issue for me. The degree to which I need to have it - well, 'control freak' isn't far wrong. People who lack self-control tend to lose my respect. It's one thing to say "I'm going to go out and dance like nobody cares 'cause I sure don't" (OK) and another thing to say "I'm going to drink too much and then refuse to take responsibility when I ram my car into a tree because I can't control my drinking." (NOT OK). Control, for me, is also strongly correlated with safety.

usability: I sometimes call myself a usability person, but that's sort of wrong. More of what I do is captured by the notion of interaction design. Usability has become something of a synonym for "what I'm used to" and thus has lost much of its meaning. Usability is really something like a measure of peoples' feelings and something like an objectively discernable property of an interaction. Usability is also a lot like pornography.

mystery: as a genre, something I enjoy from time to time. As a description of the universe, almost a truism. Everything is a mystery to someone - it's all a matter of perspective. Myteries are just questions to which we don't have the answer at the moment. Things that we cannot ever know (position vs velocity, or Schroedinger's cat) aren't mysteries - they're properties of the universe. Mystery describes that part of not-knowing that's interesting. I don't know most of my readers' mothers' names but that's not a mystery because mostly it doesn't matter. Mysteries are there to be solved - again, because they're the set of things that matter.

gaming: a hobby, a relaxation, and a creative exercise. Lately since I've gotten into MMOs it's also a social exercise, in the sense that LJ or other social networking sites are. I'm picky about my gaming and I'm a terrible loser. I don't often like playing competitive games against other people because I have such a drive to win that it removes many of the enjoyable elements. Cooperative games are much more interesting. Tabletop D&D for example, is a sort of collaborative storytelling exercise rather than a head-to-head competitive situation like chess.

aggressive: SEZ WHO? (This seems to be the un-serious answer day) I'm a pretty aggressive individual. See above about control and competitive. I've also got very little patience, particularly for (people I consider) fools or idiots. I want things, I communicate directly, and I'm often less patient and more direct than others. That's generally what people mean when they call me aggressive. I don't think I intentionally engage in physically aggressive behaviors, but my body language may read that way.

Comments

[celticdragonfly.livejournal.com]

The guys picked up a fridge magnet for me, with what I believe was a Joss quote, "I'm not a control freak, I'm a control enthusiast."

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

you inspired good words. :)

your directness often reads as aggressive to me (and possibly to other women?). you also tend to be LOUD about your directness on occasion, which tends to make me jumpy until i realize "oh yeah, he's not being loud AT me, just AROUND me."