::scr Ramblings of a Classic Refugee or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love OS X

[Piers Cawley]

Matt Webb <matt@interconnected.org> writes:
> On Tuesday, February 5, 2002, at 02:40 PM, Simon Wistow wrote:
>> On Sun, Feb 03, 2002 at 04:54:11PM +0000, Matt Webb said:
>>> [insert Whole Other Rant here.]
>>
>> Please do :)
>
> Oh, I need to stumble onto the topic somehow. But briefly:
>
> I will assert that there is some pattern[s] to the way the universe
> works. The closer an interface is to these patterns, the more
> familiar/intuitive it will feel. Therefore better.
>
> The problem is twofold:
> - the patterns are quite deep, so we've never really considered
> building them in to computers. I'm talking about patterns like cause
> and effect, weight, small changes only rarely having big effects,
                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You know, I'm really unsure about that one. Evidence is that the vast
majority of natural phenomena are non-linear in interesting
ways. (Witness the whole 'small sperm interfaces with small egg' thing
for instance). If you were feeling positive you could probably call
this 'high leverage', or maybe just plain chaotic. An awful lot of
human design appears to be attempting to overcome sensitive dependence
on initial conditions to provide us with something a little more
predictable. I do find myself wondering, occasionally, if we might not
be better off trying to find ways of taking advantage of this to
tailor emergent behaviour using some kind iteration + feedback kind of
dealy. (cf Daniel C Dennett's ideas about the 'Multiple Drafts' model
of consciousness, or wossname's 'Society of Mind' approach to AI).

But then I wake up and the daydream dissipates.

> don't eat poison berries, that kind of stuff.
> - with things like cars, they operate within the range of
> physical-reality so we get patterns for free. Stuff like turning a
> wheel having a proportionate effect on the turning circle (although I
> know that wasn't an inevitable innovation, and to alter the mirror
> position you *touch the mirror itself* (genius, you wouldn't get that
> in Windows). However with computers we're creating a whole other
> reality, and we're losing a whole load of things we never knew we had:
> peripheral vision, the idea of stretching to grab something,
> alter-at-a-point.

But that particular interface is *crap*, at least for things like
wingmirrors because generally, in order to make the adjustment you
have to move your head, and find yourself having to guess about what
the field of view will be when you're head's back in driving
position... That's why the new shiny electric joystick things for
adjusting wingmirrors are so much better.

That said, it's amazing how similar the interface of a modern car is
compared to that of an early motorcar. Modulo little things like
the throttle and clutch pedals changing places...

> So computers have to be consciously designed to reintroduce these
> things, which is going to be hard. But it has to be done carefully
> and consistently.
>
> Looking is one of those things. Consider a signpost at a
> crossroads. Far away, it's quite small. As it gets more important
> [you're closer to the crossroads], it gets bigger! What's more, the
> longer you look at it, the more detailed information you see,
> information you can neglect next time you encounter it because it'll
> be the same (you can tell because if it was different, the signpost
> would look new). Wouldn't that be great with dialogue boxes?

Mmm... gaze tracking. We know we want it. We know that MS is going to
fuck it up...

-- 
Piers

   "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in
    possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite."
         -- Jane Austen?