Beat the Drum Slowly and Play the Fife Lowly

This has truly been an annus horribilis, It's little wonder that so many people have chosen 2016 as their year to depart this mortal coil. Here are the people whom I considered to be significant. Very obviously, your list will differ.

Heroes

• Stephanie Rader
• Edgar Mitchell
• Mitchell Higginbotham
• Fred Cherry
• Samuel Willenberg
• Delmer Berg
• Joe Medicine Crow
• Elizabeth Strohfus
• Gilbert Horn Sr.
• Erich Rudorffer
• Kaname Harada
• Jane Fawcett
• Elie Wiesel
• Dave Bald Eagle
• Shelby Westbrook
• Jeremiah Joseph O'Keefe
• John Glenn
• Larry Colburn

Musicians

• David Bowie
• Paul Bley
• Glenn Frey
• Keith Emerson
• Greg Lake
• Paul Kanter
• Frank Sinatra, Jr.
• Merle Haggard
• Jimmie Van Zant
• Prince
• Maurice White
• Scotty Moore
• Ralph Stanley
• Rob Wasserman
• Pete Fountain
• Stanley "Buckwheat Zydeco" Dural
• Sharon Jones
• Leonard Cohen
• Leon Russell

Sportsmen & Sportswomen

• Joe Garagiola
• Muhammad Ali
• Gordie Howe
• Pat Summitt
• Buddy Ryan
• Carl Haas
• Shugoro Nakazato
• Arnold Palmer
• Dave Mirra

Authors

• Umberto Eco
• Harper Lee
• Alvin Toffler
• Edward Albee
• Richard Adams

Actors

• Alan Rickman
• Dan Haggerty
• Abe Vigoda
• George Kennedy
• Frank Kelly
• Garry Shandling
• Burt Kwouk
• Bud Spencer
• Jerry Doyle
• Alan Young
• David Huddleston
• Kenny Baker
• Jack Riley
• Paul Comi
• Patty Duke
• Gene Wilder
• Robert Vaughn
• Andrew Sachs
• Florence Henderson
• Ron Glass
• Bernard Fox
• Alan Thicke
• Carrie Fisher
• Debbie Reynolds
• William Christopher

Statesmen, Stateswomen, & Politicians

• Dale Bumpers
• Antonin Scalia
• Jo Cox
• James R. Bennett
• Walter Scheel
• Phyllis Schafly
• Shimon Peres
• Janet Reno
• Fidel Castro
• King Bhumibol Adulyadej
• Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Scientists & Engineers

• Ed Yourdan
• Marvin Minsky
• Wesley A. Clark
• Ray Tomlinson
• Katharine Blodgett Gebbie
• James Cronin
• Joe Sutter
• Andrew Grove
• Eileen Younghusband
• Edward Lofgren
• Deborah S. Jin
• Charles H. Henry
• Erwin Hahn
• Jack Garman
• Denton Cooley
• Henry Heimlich
• Vera Rubin

Journalists

• Craig Windham
• Tom Mintier
• John McLaughlin
• Gwen Ifill
• Craig Sager
• Morley Safer
• Joe Garagiola
• Bud Collins

Others

• Bob Elliot — Comedian
• Jack Elrod — Cartoonist
• Henry Worsley — Adventurer
• Tom Hayden — Peace & Civil Rights Activist
• George Martin — Record Producer & Composer
• Daniel Barrigan — Priest & Social Advocate
• Raymond Selby — Friend & Character since 7th Grade
• Michael Cimino — Screenwriter & Director
• Garry Marshall — Television & Movie Producer
• Darren Seals — Social Activist
• Nancy Reagan — First Lady & Actress
• Greta Zimmer Friedman — A moment, frozen in time.
• Zsa Zsa Gabor — Celebrity
• Joseph Harmatz — Partisan Fighter & Revenge Plotter
• George Barris — Photographer
• Tyrus Wong — Artist

Early Exploits in User Experience

Years ago, I made a control panel for a laser system. The lab director, Dr. Ken ~~~~, had a habit of randomly changing settings on your perfectly calibrated equipment. To prevent this, the panel had a toggle switch that was labeled “TUNING” and switched between “MANUAL” and “AUTOMATIC”. There were three very fancy knobs that even had little Vernier dials:

They were labeled something like “OFFSET”, “DEAD BAND”, and “GAIN”, if I recall correctly. There was also an LED that could change from yellow to red.

Of course, the switch and knobs weren’t connected to anything and the light was connected to a little circuit that had a photocell. If someone stood in front of the panel for a couple of minutes, his or her shadow would cause a capacitor to drain until a transistor would reverse the polarity on the LED and it would change colors. Since there was no label about whether red or yellow was good, Ken would wander by on occasion and tweak the knobs until it changed to the other color.

The whole thing had been built as an April Fools’ prank and was quite satisfactory. Access to the real settings required you to unscrew and remove the aforementioned panel, whereupon you could change the actual controls, which were mounted on the electronics chassis itself. Since this was usually accompanied by considerable swearing and yelling across the football-field sized basement laboratory, it was never done except late at night, so Ken never caught on.

Because we were funded by the Department of Energy, which would send bureaucrats from Washington to ensure that we were spending the money properly, all of our gear was abundantly outfitted with dials and blinking lights, which twitched and flashed in dramatic fashion. This reassured the bean counters, who had absolutely no idea of what they meant. This was all the way back in 1979 and almost certainly represented my first explorations into the difference between user interface and user experience.

How Do You Say, "Sucks to be you!" in Spanish?

Ah, futbol. A game of inches. Chilean team Universidad de Concepcion beat O'Higgins, which is somehow another Chilean team. In stoppage time at the end of the game, down 2-1, O'Higgins' keeper clears the ball down the field, hoping for one shot at the tying score.

It did not work out as planned.