Tools vs. tasks

social software, technology / /

From Adam Fields’s blog post, "Unthrilled with the Office 12 UI":

Over many years of designing custom content management interfaces for lots of people to use, it became crystal clear that there’s a huge difference between a “tool” and a “task”. A tool is a function that lets the user do something, but a task is a function that lets the user accomplish something.

In my experience, most successful content management interfaces are primarily task-based. When the user sits down in front of the computer, the goal is to get something done, not just use some tools. Tasks are for most people (beginners and power users alike), but tools are for power users. If you know what you want to do, but it doesn’t fit nicely into the framework of getting something done, you need a tool. Tasks should be the default.

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Science, secrecy, & mysticism

commonplace book, history, science / /

From "Secret Science", on Ockham’s Razor:

Etymologically, the word ‘science’ just means knowledge, and in pre-modern Europe, when most people would have framed their understanding according to a religious doctrine, questing after new knowledge about the created world could be rather suspect. Things understood according to the word of God were revealed to you, and the work of creation was revealed to your senses. Any form of knowledge that had to be earnestly sought after was by definition, hidden. A landmark study of magnetism, published in 1600 by Queen Elizabeth’s physician, William Gilbert, begins with a statement about "the discovery of secret things and the investigation of hidden causes."

Gilbert’s book was to become one of the foundation texts of the new science of electricity a century later, but writing in 1600, he was aware of the need to argue the case for why ‘things formerly hid in deplorable darkness’ must be brought to the knowledge of mankind.

In Gilbert’s time, seeking forms of knowledge that might enable you to perform operations with material objects and substances carried the implication that you were interfering with the divine work of creation.

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The network is central

musings, technology / /

The centrality of the network in modern life, thought, & technology is apparent in that both ends of the use stack – users & developers – now think of the network as a given. A developer doesn’t graft networking on to software later in the process; instead, software is built assuming the network. Users expect networking in their apps as a matter of course, even if they don’t realize they’re relying on a network.

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Feral cities of the future

commonplace book, history, politics, security / /

From Richard J. Norton’s “Feral cities – The New Strategic Environment” (Naval War College Review: Autumn, 2003):

Imagine a great metropolis covering hundreds of square miles. Once a vital component in a national economy, this sprawling urban environment is now a vast collection of blighted buildings, an immense petri dish of both ancient and new diseases, a territory where the rule of law has long been replaced by near anarchy in which the only security available is that which is attained through brute power. Such cities have been routinely imagined in apocalyptic movies and in certain science-fiction genres, where they are often portrayed as gigantic versions of T. S. Eliot’s Rat’s Alley. Yet this city would still be globally connected. It would possess at least a modicum of commercial linkages, and some of its inhabitants would have access to the world’s most modern communication and computing technologies. It would, in effect, be a feral city.

…

The putative “feral city” is (or would be) a metropolis with a population of more than a million people in a state the government of which has lost the ability to maintain the rule of law within the city’s boundaries yet remains a functioning actor in the greater international system.

In a feral city social services are all but nonexistent, and the vast majority of the city’s occupants have no access to even the most basic health or security assistance. There is no social safety net. Human security is for the most part a matter of individual initiative. Yet a feral city does not descend into complete, random chaos. Some elements, be they criminals, armed resistance groups, clans, tribes, or neighborhood associations, exert various degrees of control over portions of the city. Intercity, city-state, and even international commercial transactions occur, but corruption, avarice, and violence are their hallmarks. A feral city experiences massive levels of disease and creates enough pollution to qualify as an international environmental disaster zone. Most feral cities would suffer from massive urban hypertrophy, covering vast expanses of land. The city’s structures range from once-great buildings symbolic of state power to the meanest shantytowns and slums. Yet even under these conditions, these cities continue to grow, and the majority of occupants do not voluntarily leave.

Feral cities would exert an almost magnetic influence on terrorist organizations. Such megalopolises will provide exceptionally safe havens for armed resistance groups, especially those having cultural affinity with at least one sizable segment of the city’s population. The efficacy and portability of the most modern computing and communication systems allow the activities of a worldwide terrorist, criminal, or predatory and corrupt commercial network to be coordinated and directed with equipment easily obtained on the open market and packed into a minivan. The vast size of a feral city, with its buildings, other structures, and subterranean spaces, would offer nearly perfect protection from overhead sensors, whether satellites or unmanned aerial vehicles. The city’s population represents for such entities a ready source of recruits and a built-in intelligence network. Collecting human intelligence against them in this environment is likely to be a daunting task. Should the city contain airport or seaport facilities, such an organization would be able to import and export a variety of items. The feral city environment will actually make it easier for an armed resistance group that does not already have connections with criminal organizations to make them. The linkage between such groups, once thought to be rather unlikely, is now so commonplace as to elicit no comment.

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The ACLU on monopoly control by ISPs

politics, technology / /

From the ACLU’s No Competition: How Monopoly Control of the Broadband Internet Threatens Free Speech:

Common carriage policy requires that a network owner – in this case, a telephone company – not discriminate against information by halting, slowing, or otherwise tampering with the transfer of any data. The purpose of common carriage is to prevent a network owner from leveraging its control over the pipeline for communication to gain power or control over the actual information, products and services that flow through it. This is not a new concept; for well over a century it has been applied in ways that have been central to the economic development of our nation, including canal systems, public highways, and the telegraph. And common carriage has been applied to the telephone system since the early 20th century, requiring it to serve all users in an equitable and nondiscriminatory fashion.

2. Cable networks are not open

Unlike phone companies, cable television providers do not have to provide nondiscriminatory access to their TV subscribers, because cable TV is not subject to the common carrier regulatory regime. As a result, the content that cable TV companies deliver is largely under their control. …

3. Cable providers wield total control over Internet use

… Cable providers are under no obligation to remain a neutral pipe for content over an end-to-end Internet – and have many incentives for interfering with that pipe:

Basic control of the service. Providers of course have control over the fundamentals of a customer’s Internet connection. For example, they can restrict the number of computers that a customer connects to the cable modem through a home network. They can control the overall speed and reliability of a customer’s online experie nce. And they can set the price for various levels of high-speed access.

Control over applications. Providers can block their customers from using particular applications, such as video conferencing, Internet telephony, and virtual private networks …

Control over access to content. Even more frightening is the growing ability of cable providers to interfere with content. … That is like the phone company being allowed to own restaurants and then provide good service and clear signals to customers who call Domino’s and frequent busy signals, disconnects and static for those calling Pizza Hut. …

Ability to force-feed content. Cable providers can also use their monopoly power to force-feed content to customers by requiring them to access the Internet through a particular home page containing material selected by the cable company. …

Ability to violate privacy. Finally, a cable provider’s absolute control over its network gives it the technical capacity to record everything its customers do online, down to the smallest mouse click. In February 2002, the nation’s third largest cable company, Comcast, without notification to its customers, began to track their Web browsing. …

According to data provided by the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the top five cable companies in the United States control 75% of the market; if the proposed merger between Comcast and AT&T is approved, only four companies will control that 75%, with approximately 35% of all cable in the US controlled by Comcast alone. …

The FCC, meanwhile, decided in April 2002 to classify broadband Internet service over cable as an "interstate information service." That technical redefinition would mean that cable broadband could be completely exempt from federal regulation such as interconnection and common carriage requirements, as well as from oversight by local cable franchising authorities. …

In fact, the Internet would never have exploded into American life the way it has without regulations issued by the FCC that curbed the power of the telephone companies in ways that the agency is now refusing to do for cable:

  • In 1975, the FCC issued a landmark regulation preventing telephone companies from blocking their customers from attaching their own equipment to the phone network. If the agency had decided this issue the other way, regular Americans would not have been able to use computer modems, and the Internet as we know it never could have been created.
  • In 1980, the agency set out rules that required telephone companies to offer "data services" through separate affiliates because they would have had both the ability and the incentive to use their control of the telephone network to discriminate against unaffiliated, competing data services.
  • In 1983, the FCC issued a regulation preventing telephone companies from charging ISPs by the minute for their use of the local telephone network; if they had allowed such charges, consumers would have to pay per-minute fees for Internet access. That would have slowed the growth of the Internet, as such fees have done in Europe.

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6 distinct food consumers

commonplace book, science, tech in changing society, technology / /

From "Lies, Deep Fries and Statistics", at Ockham’s Razor:

So why is that, if so many people state that they are concerned about GM foods?

An indication of why has been provided by Environics International, a Canadian company which has done some cluster graphs on consumer attitudes to food and whose research translates well into Australia. The general finding of its research shows that attitudes towards GM foods are more driven by general attitudes towards food than attitudes towards gene technology.

They have defined six distinct consumer segments:

The first, Food Elites, who prefer to eat organics and the best foods and will pay for them ( about 1 in 10 amongst the population ).

Then, the Naturalists, who prefer to buy from markets rather than supermarkets ( about 1 in 8 ).

Fearful Shoppers, who have concerns about most foods, predominantly elder consumers ( about 1 in 5 ).

Nutrition Seekers, who treat food as fuel for the body ( about 1 in 5 ).

Date Code Diligent, who read labels, but generally only look at the use-by date and fat content, predominantly younger women ( about 1 in 8 ).

And The Unconcerned, who don’t really care too much about what they eat, predominantly younger men ( about 1 in 8 ).

Those top three, the food elites, the naturalists and the fearful shoppers, are concerned about many food issues and also concerned about GM foods. The bottom three, the nutrition seekers, the date code diligent and the unconcerned have specific concerns only, or aren’t too concerned about foods at all and are not concerned about GM foods.

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Drunken sailors

history / /

From "Peter Smalley – HMS Expedient", at Books and Writing:

Peter Smalley: … In the 18th century, each seaman was given half a pint of rum a day…in our terms (because of the strength of the rum), a pint of rum a day. So they were permanently drunk, more or less. Well, they led terribly rigorous lives, and that was the way the navy kept them happy.

Tony Barrell: And when Captain Rennie, who’s one of the main protagonists of HMS Expedient, its captain, threatens to withdraw the rum ration; that’s worse than threatening them with the lash.

Peter Smalley: I think in most ships it was regarded as the ultimate punishment because these guys were alcohol-dependent. If you took away their grog they suffered withdrawal, it was as simple as that, and they hated that more than anything. They’d rather take a dozen lashes than have their grog withdrawn. That’s absolutely true.

 

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Memory memories

musings / /

Some gathered thoughts on memory:

Wanting to remember & forgetting, or knowing you’ll forget 

My father’s memories, & a chosen few passed along to me – of those chosen (or random) few, how many do I pass along?

Emotion recollected not in tranquility, but sometimes in seething emotion, in inner turmoil or pain

Flow of memories, inspired by surroundings & other memories

"I remember deciding to remember the moment"

Linear vs. thematic storytelling

Ways to jog the memory: string on the finger – notes to self – phone calls – emails – Art of Memory – Simonides

Alzheimer’s – loss of memory

Mistaken memories – false memories – brainwashing

Mnemosyne

Collective memory

Old movies & videos for the family – photos passed down

The attachment of new memories, & new meanings, to family objects

Sensory memory: auditory, visual, textual, smell, taste

Deja vu

Proust’s Madeleine

Fune the Memorious – the importance of forgetting

How will we be remembered? How can we be remembered? What can we do to insure our memory lives on? 

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He stopped in time

overheard, true stories / /

Joe Freeman & I were at a party at Jans & Sarah’s. He announced to me that his company had just decided on a new name: Iron Jelly.

"Why that name?" I asked.

Joe explained, "Well, I was looking through a list of words, and I went down the list until I saw two next to each other that I liked: ‘iron jelly’."

"It’s a good thing you didn’t go down a bit further, to ‘vaginal warts’," I said.

Joe didn’t know what to say. 

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Timelessness, eternity, god

commonplace book, science / /

From "Science and Faith", at Ockham’s Razor:

Time, along with matter and space is a constituent part of our universe. Time cannot exist without matter and space. So it makes no sense to talk about a time before our universe came into existence. …

To begin with, what does the fact that there is no absolute time say about God? If one accepts that God has created the universe, through the Big Bang or some other means, then he must have created time in the process.

So God is not constrained by time, and God is not carried along in time as we are. God simply is. …

It follows that God is not waiting to find out what the future holds. For God, it is already present. You might imagine God as seeing the whole of creation, beginning, middle and end, all laid out before him. Rather like the pictures on the wall of an ancient tomb, or perhaps like the frames of a movie film. …

At first glance, God’s knowledge of the future might suggest predestination. But that does not take into account that we ourselves are moving through time. …

But having made that choice, you will not be able to go back and change it. It will have been swept away in time to become an immutable fact. And similarly for all our lives, our free choices are turned into unchangeable facts by the passage of time. … Does that mean that it was predestined? Certainly not. It simply means that our free will, within time, exists alongside God’s foreknowledge, outside of time.

The common understanding of eternity is of time simply going on and on forever. But as science now indicates, time can only exist as long as space and matter, that is our universe, exists. And since science also indicates that the universe is finite (that is, it had a beginning some time ago and will come to an end one way or another sometime in the future), our time, and hence our eternity are finite also. …

We need to think of an afterlife that involves a transfer of consciousness into a timeless state that is linked in some way to God’s being.

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The history of =

commonplace book, history, science / /

From "The History of the Equals Sign", at The Science Show:

In 1543, [Robert] Record published The Ground of Arts, the first ever maths book in English, which ran through over fifty editions … Until 1557, mathematicians had finished off a calculation by laboriously writing out the words, is equal to, which was sometimes abbreviated to AE or OE from the Latin word for equal, aequalis. But Record had a better idea, why not use a symbol, he said, to avoid, as he put it, the tedious repetition of these words he proposed the use of a pair of parallel lines. Using this simple device that we now call the equals sign released an enormous logjam in the efficient handling of numbers and the implications extended far beyond pure maths.

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What makes a great hacker?

commonplace book, technology / /

From Paul Graham’s "Great Hackers":

… In programming, as in many fields, the hard part isn’t solving problems, but deciding what problems to solve. …

What do hackers want? Like all craftsmen, hackers like good tools. In fact, that’s an understatement. Good hackers find it unbearable to use bad tools. They’ll simply refuse to work on projects with the wrong infrastructure. …

Great hackers also generally insist on using open source software. Not just because it’s better, but because it gives them more control. Good hackers insist on control. This is part of what makes them good hackers: when something’s broken, they need to fix it. …

After software, the most important tool to a hacker is probably his office. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. But hackers use their offices for more than that: they use their office as a place to think in. And if you’re a technology company, their thoughts are your product. So making hackers work in a noisy, distracting environment is like having a paint factory where the air is full of soot. …

Indeed, these statistics about Cobol or Java being the most popular language can be misleading. What we ought to look at, if we want to know what tools are best, is what hackers choose when they can choose freely– that is, in projects of their own. When you ask that question, you find that open source operating systems already have a dominant market share, and the number one language is probably Perl. …

Along with good tools, hackers want interesting projects. …

This is an area where managers can make a difference. Like a parent saying to a child, I bet you can’t clean up your whole room in ten minutes, a good manager can sometimes redefine a problem as a more interesting one. Steve Jobs seems to be particularly good at this, in part simply by having high standards. …

Along with interesting problems, what good hackers like is other good hackers. Great hackers tend to clump together …

When I was in grad school I used to hang around the MIT AI Lab occasionally. It was kind of intimidating at first. Everyone there spoke so fast. But after a while I learned the trick of speaking fast. You don’t have to think any faster; just use twice as many words to say everything. …

I’ve found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent. …

The key to being a good hacker may be to work on what you like. When I think about the great hackers I know, one thing they have in common is the extreme difficulty of making them work on anything they don’t want to. I don’t know if this is cause or effect; it may be both. …

The best hackers tend to be smart, of course, but that’s true in a lot of fields. Is there some quality that’s unique to hackers? I asked some friends, and the number one thing they mentioned was curiosity. I’d always supposed that all smart people were curious– that curiosity was simply the first derivative of knowledge. But apparently hackers are particularly curious, especially about how things work. That makes sense, because programs are in effect giant descriptions of how things work.

Several friends mentioned hackers’ ability to concentrate– their ability, as one put it, to ‘tune out everything outside their own heads.’ …

Notes

It’s hard to say exactly what constitutes research in the computer world, but as a first approximation, it’s software that doesn’t have users.

What makes a great hacker? Read More »

Cuchulain fights the ocean waves

commonplace book / /

From Lady Augusta Gregory’s "XVIII. The Only Son of Aoife", from Cúchullin of Muirthemne (1902).

THE time Cúchulainn came back from Alban, after he had learned the use of arms under Scathach, he left Aoife, the queen he had overcome in battle, with child.

And when he was leaving her, he told her what name to give the child, and he gave her a gold ring, and bade her keep it safe till the child grew to be a lad, and till his thumb would fill it; and he bade her to give it to him then, and to send him to Ireland, and he would know he was his son by that token. She promised to do so, and with that Cúchulainn went back to Ireland.

It was not long after the child was born, word came to Aoife that Cúchulainn had taken Emer to be his wife in Ireland. When she heard that, great jealousy came on her, and great anger, and her love for Cúchulainn was turned to hatred; and she remembered her three champions that he had killed, and how he had overcome herself, and she determined in her mind that when her son would come to have the strength of a man, she would get her revenge through him.

She told Conlaoch her son nothing of this, but brought him up like any king’s son; and when he was come to sensible years, she put him under the teaching of Scathach, to be taught the use of arms and the art of war. He turned out as apt a scholar as his father, and it was not long before he had learnt all Scathach had to teach.

Then Aoife gave him the arms of a champion, and bade him go to Ireland, but first she laid three commands on him: the first never to give way to any living person, but to die sooner than be made turn back; the second, not to refuse a challenge from the greatest champion alive, but to fight him at all risks, even if he was sure to lose his life; the third, not to tell his name on any account, though he might be threatened with death for hiding it. She put him under geasa, that is, under bonds, not to do these things.

Then the young man, Conlaoch, set out, and it was not long before his ship brought him to Ireland, and the place he landed at was Baile’s Strand, near Dundealgan.

It chanced that at that time Conchobar, the High King, was holding court there, for it was a convenient gathering-place for his chief men, and they were settling some business that belonged to the government of that district. …

Cúchulainn rose up then and went to where Conlaoch was, and he still handling his arms. And Cúchulainn asked him his name and said: ‘It would be well for you, young hero of unknown name, to loosen yourself from this knot, and not to bring down my hand upon you, for it will be hard for you to escape death.’ But Conlaoch said: ‘If I put you down in the fight, the way I put down your comrade, there will be a great name on me; but if I draw back now, there will be mockery on me, and it will be said I was afraid of the fight. I will never give in to any man to tell the name, or to give an account of myself. But if I was not held with a command,’ he said, ‘there is no man in the world I would sooner give it to than to yourself, since I saw your face.

But do not think, brave champion of Ireland, that I will let you take away the fame I have won, for nothing.’

With that they fought together, and it is seldom such a battle was seen, and all wondered that the young lad could stand so well against Cúchulainn. …

But Cúchulainn threw his spear, the Gae Bulga, at him with all his might, and it struck the lad in the side and went into his body, so that he fell to the ground.

And Cúchulainn said: ‘Now, boy, tell your name and what you are, for it is short your life will be, for you will not live after that wound.’

And Conlaoch showed the ring that was on his hand, and he said: ‘Come here where I am lying on the field, let my men from the east come round me. I am suffering for revenge. I am Conlaoch, son of the Hound, heir of dear Dundealgan; I was bound to this secret in Dun Scathach, the secret in which I have found my grief.’ …

And then the sorrow of death came upon Conlaoch, and Cúchulainn took his sword and put it through him, sooner than leave him in the pain and the punishment he was in.

And then great trouble and anguish came on Cúchulainn …

‘I am the father that killed his son, the fine green branch; there is no hand or shelter to help me.

‘I am a raven that has no home; I am a boat going from wave to wave; I am a ship that has lost its rudder; I am the apple left on the tree; it is little I thought of falling from it; grief and sorrow will be with me from this time.’

Then Cúchulainn stood up and faced all the men of Ulster.

‘There is trouble on Cúchulainn,’ said Conchobar; ‘he is after killing his own son, and if I and all my men were to go against him, by the end of the day he would destroy every man of us. Go now,’ he said to Cathbad, the Druid, ‘and bind him to go down to Baile’s Strand, and to give three days fighting against the waves of the sea, rather than to kill us all.’

So Cathbad put an enchantment on him, and bound him to go down. And when he came to the strand, there was a great white stone before him, and he took his sword in his right hand, and he said: ‘If I had the head of the woman that sent her son to his death, I would split it as I split this stone.’ And he made four quarters of the stone.

Then he fought with the waves three days and three nights, till he fell from hunger and weakness, so that some men said he got his death there. But it was not there he got his death, but on the plain of Muirthemne.

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The printed book results in more handwritten mss

commonplace book, history, tech in changing society, technology / /

From “William Caxton“, at The Science Show:

More than 500 years later a copy of Caxton’s first edition of Chaucer became the most expensive book ever sold, knocked down at auction in the 1990s for 4.6 million pounds. But in the 15th Century, the obvious appeal of the newly printed books lay in their value for money. Books became so commonplace indeed, that some snobs employed scribes to copy Caxton’s printed editions back into manuscript, while both church and government became alarmed at the access to new ideas that the printing press offered to a widening public. [Emphasis added]

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The first printed English books

commonplace book, history, technology / /

From “William Caxton“, at The Science Show:

In 1474, his History of Troy, his own book, became the first book to be printed in English and two years later he brought his press to England setting up shop near the Chapter House in the precinct of Westminster Abbey, where parliament met. Caxton had an eye for a good location. Along the route between the palace of Westminster and the Chapter House shuffled lawyers, churchmen, courtiers, MPs – the book buying elite of England. The former cloth trader also had an eye for a best seller. The second book he printed was about chess, the game and play of the chess. Then came in fairly quick succession, a French-English dictionary, a translation of Aesop’s fables, several popular romances, Mallory’s tale of Camelot in Le Mort d’Arthur, some school text books, a history of England, an encyclopaedia entitled The Mirror of the World and Chaucer’s bawdy evergreen collection, The Canterbury Tales.

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