iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 01/10/2026

WHY 'ERROR-CHECKING' IS BAD #UI #UX #narrativedesign #coding Syntax is too unforgiving. If I have the 'check as you type' feature turned on, I don't want the system suggesting something in somatic red interrupting my flow. Ever. Humans make mistakes constantly. They use unfamiliar terms too. 1/2

The boss from Scott Adams' Dilbert cartoon saying "Make it so they have to reboot after every typo."

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 24/09/2026

#Usability #UI #UX #Demos #Theory #AI pitches feel like timeshares. They abstract away everything that makes us human. None of it appears in their vision. Sex, violence, bias, hate, joy, connection, fulfillment, healing: gone. `Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy.` `Network:Movie:1976`

[TV:The Simpsons:You Only Move Twice reference] Pandhandler turns into a mailbox

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 24/09/2026

Why #infinity = ∞ It's a crossed-belt drive. Follow: A twisted rubber band around two axles. Turn one up, the other goes down. Axle = category. 'The lower the job rate, the higher the crime.' #notmybeliefs 'Lower job rate' = turn the job knob (!) down...and the crime knob [!!] goes up. In theory.

Still from a GIF of a crossed belt drive animation - two axles and a crossed loop around both of them.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 23/09/2026

Computing as #stage: Visual affordances like icons? 🖨️ They're #spike-marks. Like the Xs on the stage some actors stand on. "Here there be #affordances."

An orange spike mark (X shape on the ground) created with spike tape.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 23/09/2026

#LOA = Levels of abstraction. Metahumor in a jugular vein.

Batman slapping Robin meme. Robin: What if you... Batman: Stop doing LOA work in the Batcave

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 23/09/2026

Regardless of how much we read, a lot of us seem to love Belle's library. Why? Because the things that matter to her are laid out in front of her with that greased ladder for cherishing them. Beauty and the Information Architect.

Disney's 1991 animated classic Beauty and the Beast: Belle rides a horizontally sliding ladder fast enough to billow her dress, and outstretches her left hand.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 23/09/2026

Babbage knew how to get the cabbage. @williamgibson.bsky.social and @bruces.bsky.social, thanks! It's been a long while, but I remember the flippers and the wry turn at the end. ... Okay, I admit the thank-you was so I could use the Babbage/cabbage pun I came up with). #worthit

Steampunk-styled scifi book cover: The Difference Engine, with the authors listed: Wililam Gibson, Bruce Sterling.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 21/09/2026

First night spent alone, knowing I'm alone, in 23.5 years. No Mom. No Dad. No Chris. Even Michelle is downstairs in the guest suite. No listening for Mom in the condo and being ready to leap into action at a moment's notice. to smooth her path. The Yahrzeit candle went out tonight. It's time.

Photo by Nothing Ahead: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-burning-candles-8564625/

Close-up of two candles, one going out.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 17/09/2026

4) Conclusion: That construction of 'clown dies' is as close as Homer can get to John's idea. What we have here, is a failure to communicate #CoolHandLuke, and failure can be very funny (see below). - Let's work on picking apart some other #jokes.

Homer Simpson striking pile of junk with steel pipe, saying "Why must I fail at every attempt at masonry?!"

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 17/09/2026

#thesimpsons #humor #camp #johnwaters #doh John (Waters): You know, camp! The ludicrously-tragic? The tragically-ludicrous? Homer: Oh, like when a clown dies. ANALYSIS: Humor through abstraction mismatch. That blur when you get far enough that two things look the same. Picture the somatic feeling.

A calm John Waters eyes a nervous Homer Simpson in front of a wall of pop culture memorabilia in this still from "Homer's Phobia" of the show The Simpsons.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 16/09/2026

A brief clip in question. The glyphs might be indexed and arranged near each other semantically for fast retrieval. Watch the clerk's thought process, demonstrated subjectively by the film with her finger movement, as she unsuccessfully works at the #tipofmytongue problem.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 16/09/2026

#UI and #UX in @mikejudge.bsky.social's 2006 Idiocracy. The ultimate modeless interface: a grid of icons that each tell a story and draw a boundary around the condition in a one-color-on-white still image. Without words. Diegetically designed for humans working with low cognitive overhead.

Glyph keyboard of amusing Emergency mishaps.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 15/09/2026

Failure in #productdesign: Homer is working in my so-called 'Play Space,' but his support team (not shown, stressed out) thinks a sketch is detailed desired reality. #playspace

Homer Simpson sternly pointing to a crude drawing of a futuristic, silly car.

Homer driving his self-designed impractical 'car of the future' while his brother Herb looks askance.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 15/09/2026

How I'll remember #BobMackie: 1. The Carol Burnett Show's parody of "Gone With the Wind." Carol makes a Mackie dress from the curtains that brings the house down. It's on YouTube I think. 2. Working in a manufacturing center in Toronto for colognes and perfumes. Mackie scent hung in the air.

Carol Burnett Show episode, parody of Gone With the Wind. Carol Burnett as Scarlett wearing a Bob Mackie-designed hilarious dress, standing next to Harvey Corman as Rhett.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 15/09/2026

Seth Brundlefly in 1989's Cronenberg remake of 'The Fly' comes face to face with a voice-recognition error caused by his changing body: #Somatic referent - the feeling when you've lost or gained weight so fast that your smart scale no longer recognizes you. #psychology #ui #ux #rateofchange

1980s stylized computer text: blue blocky text on black:

Triangle icon. ERROR - PATTERN MISMATCH
VOICE NOT RECOGNIZED
VOICE NOT RECOGNIZED
VOICE NOT RECOGNIZ (text cut off)

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 15/09/2026

Guacamole potato pancakes over fried eggs with black truffle salt.

Close-up shot of guacamole on potato pancakes on fried eggs.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 13/09/2026

I'd be honored. Someone did an OC from my Lavender Tavern podcast many years ago and I was over the moon. Talio's Tales series: * Talio Rossa, brilliant lawyer and trickster, facially scarred, bearded.

"May I please draw your OC?"
Reshare this post if you encourage anyone who wants to draw your OC to do so. There is no need to ask for permission in advance. Go for it. Draw my OC. If you want, I'll even give you written reference material. Go to town on it. You are welcome to draw my OC and surprise me with the result. Seriously. In fact, I encourage it. I will proudly display whatever it is you submit to me regarding my OC. There is a chance that I will squeal about it for several days. Even if you feel you aren't good at whatever art it is you do, please feel free to submit it to me. I want to see what you have done.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 12/09/2026

#foldingphones #tradeoffs #thedreadedcrease The crease has been pointed out again and again as a flaw of folding phones. The #iPhoneDuo may have solved this, but we'll see. (image is NOT iPhone Duo)

Old folding phone with painfully obvious crease.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 11/09/2026

Nabbed one from Claude live. This one's fine, but others are not.

Claude thinking chip: "Reading the person's preference for a direct, present response. 14s"

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 07/09/2026

2) In my windowing environment, I can copy an image and trigger a paste command in a text file, and the OS will blithely continue pushing on the pull door. Will the image I cut remain in the clipboard queue, or is this phantom paste a destructive action? Only the MacOS knows for sure!

Classic Gary Larson Far Side cartoon: Young boy tries to enter school by pushing uselessly on the Pull door, while a sign notes "Midvale School For the Gifted."

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 07/09/2026

#designprinciples #ux I Want My Prims I want conceptual primitives I can use anywhere. If I have a template I should be able to apply it universally on anything on my computer with a gentle, graceful degradation for task failure.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 07/09/2026

7) I have had experience with other people in their own closed loops, but my father is the saddest for me. This clip helps me remember, cheesy though it might be [Dad was no 'raging madman' of course). I recall this to keep my father's fear and my own angry helplessness close.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

3) Once all alternatives on this point have been considered, compare costs and benefits, keeping in mind that kludging social frameworks, rituals and guidelines can minimize or alter technical requirements technical requirements. 4) You have drawn a Qat. #PersonalReferent: B. Kliban.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

www.google.com/search?q=luc... #ui #ux I'd forgotten how much I loved these later-70s designs. Hefty, smooth, invariant, reassuring Lucite blocks with seamless edges The pleasing tactile experience of rearranging the ancient glyphs to complete your task. #firstoneinturnonthelights

Google Images search engine results for 1970s lucite puzzle smoked.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

Another reason I was fascinated by hidden images, or transforming images to get a result, like lenticular, parallax or integral imaging for stereoscopy.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

#meta Still more thoughts about scalable things: UIs, views, the benefits we get from going from one view to another (micro/macro). The problem is that this view is like a #PivotTable. It's not immediately visible.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

2) It's like Pivot Tables or 3D or stereo or love or sex or smell of Play-Doh. You and I can speak and write and media all we want. We need more tools. And those needed tools include frameworks for understanding and assessing orgs and themselves. Again, always voluntary, always transparent.

Several small yellow plastic containers of Play-Doh next to a stack of pink and green lids.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

6) The Spare Room I'm not suggesting we unlock secret mind powers or any such nonsense. But we might be able to use the framework effectively even if it's only a convention. Just as we use the framework of a conversation to 'talk' with LLMs. Looking for like-thinkers. #firstoneinturnsonthelights

In the past four months, they'd received hundreds of replies to the ad, most of which assumed it was a contest or a sales pitch for anything from magazine subscriptions to the Rosicrucians. A few were tantalizingly ambiguous, but on follow-up investigation had proven worthless. The most promising, yet maddening, of them all had been a one-line message postmarked Sydney, Australia, with no signature or return address: "Not this time," it read. "Wait.”

Excerpt From
REPLAY - Ken Grimwood
Replay
This material may be protected by copyright.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

3) The Spare Room So many plans. Possibilities. A new start. A spare room for friends. A shag suite. And then, inevitably, I wake up. That's my spare room.

70s style corner of a room with deep red shag rug, wood panelling and an old stereo.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

Humor is the propriocepted ASMR reaction to the mind swinging rapidly between two valid interpretations and landing on the unlikelier one. Snapping it in place like a socket - the 'got it' feeling. It might be subconscious stimming behavior. Humans are fond of rhythms and taps and entrainment.

Microphone in front of rows of out-of-focus theatre seats.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

#randomthought Status Quo: The #uncannyvalley is represented as a dip. The graph shown is descriptive, not normative. arxiv.org/html/2607.13...

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

#Ideainpassing Use the 'city on a table' approach to simulation and problem-solving. #PersonalReferents: * en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tun... * Futureworld (1976) reception area shown in first image, and NASA-style control panel set in second image * Project Cybersyn in third image

A group of varied people examine model domes on a large circular waist-high platform.

Scene from Futureworld, 1976. Sportscaster type technicians man stations in a NASA-type control room.

3D Render of Project Cybersyn workspace.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

6) #PersonalReferent: Holodeck arch, present in every iteration from ST:TAS to today (original name: control panel) This 'meta layer' is very helpful to be able to dip in and out at will. More about that later.

Entrance to the Star Trek Enterprise's Recreation Room (later the Holodeck) from Star Trek: The Animated Series. Uhura, Sulu and Spock stand at the entrance to the recreation room, looking in.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

3) The Brothers are a great crowd. Some of us look like this:

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

FIRST ONE IN TURNS ON THE LIGHTS. There are ideas just floating around for the taking. We've seen stories where a perfectly obvious invention could have been done much earlier. And even if it couldn't have been done perfectly due to lack of technology or social standards...that's where we kludge.

Light Switch Theory meme. Hand reaching out to light bulb. Text:
Light Switch Theory
First one in turns on the lights.
JALEXANDERCOHEN.COM

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

4) So many implications and design constraints and possibilities come out of that single exchange. I imagine a single-purpose nubbly Speak and Spell type unit that accepts physical manipulation and real-world representation of data.

Child smiling at a Speak and Spell in his hands.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

1) Heinlein: "Working models are not required for patents, merely drawings and descriptions. But I needed good models, models that would work perfectly and anybody could demonstrate, because these models were going to have to sell themselves, show by their very practicality and

Hardcover book cover, The Door Into Summer, Robert A Heinlein, 1957. Man stands in front of control panel looking horrified, while his cat looks angry.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 06/09/2026

1) Design thought: The Moral Smudge (or Rorschach if I must) An interactive visualization of an individual's (or org's) moral position on the edge cases that define the 'hard law' part of controversial issues. Humans often do not hold coherent moral or ethical positions.

Abstract painting by https://www.pexels.com/@287172/ Steve Johnson.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 05/09/2026

In an ideal world (existence of prisoners aside) we could trust that our efforts and trust are rewarded. #personalreferent: TOS episode Alternative Factor, Kirk's wistful sign-off "But what of Lazarus? What of Lazarus?" or Turnabout Intruder's "She could have had a life as rich as any man (UGH)."

Screen shot from Star Trek's "Turnabout Intruder": Kirk points to a seated Janice Lester while talking to Mr. Spock.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 05/09/2026

I think I finally understand why the #prisonersdilemma always held such fascination for me, and led me to consider game theory, politics and persuasion. The tragedy (for it is a tragedy for the prisoners) is that they could have trusted each other.

Screen shot from Star Trek's "The Alternative Factor": Two men battle each other in reversed colour in front of a starry background.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 31/08/2026

Classic Hungarian dinner to celebrate mom's homecoming from the hospital. Sour cherry soup, veal schnitzel and mushroom rice.

Close up of tray of food. Visible colon plate of veal schnitzel pieces and mushroom rice. Bowl of sour cherry cold soup. Glasses of soda water and pineapple juice. Fork, spoon, napkin and tray.

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 29/08/2026

Narratess Indie August Sale! Plenty of #spacewizardsciencefantasy books to stock up on. Support your queer indie authors! @wctracy.bsky.social

Narratess Indie August Sale banner. Text: Indie Book Sale indiebook.sale Fantasy, Sci Fi and Horror 29-31 August

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J. Alexander Cohen | Design and Fantasy @jalexandercohen.com · 27/08/2026

#buckrogers Dr. Huer logging onto Grindr at 300 baud and watching the first profile name being spelled out.

A futuristic scene, as a man in a white jumpsuit with gray hair watches a bulky, old-fashioned computer display the word Pen in capital letters.

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