This is why a new member of the development team was added in the 80s: the user interface designer, or human factors architect. This person sits between developers, management, and marketing to ensure that what is built is appropriate for the users.
This can be a winning combination with a qualified designer. Many designers do not have the depth and the field has gotten a bad name from them, but for many efforts the user interface design is the glue which holds together large projects: defines most of the functional requirements, gives the software a framework for the developers to build-upon, and ensures that the software will be accepted by end users.
There are numerous software products which could benefit from quality interface design as part of the development process.
Unfortunately, in this sluggish economy, these softer skills as seen as non-essential, as they wonder why their tech support lines are saturated and their customers pray for the competition to offer something better.
I already pay tax in order to use the "toll road". The state charges me sales tax for my internet access.
Additonal taxes based on online sales are more akin to intrastate tarrifs.
How this might actually be useful
on
Mood-Sensing Computer
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
An adaptive computer interface which dynamically changes based on fear-level may be useful.
Special situations call for special tools. Even in Star Trek (TOG) they have tactical display modes when the ship enters combat.
A heads-up display may typically consume a good portion of the soldiers cognitive and visual capability, displaying squads current location, patrol path, intelligence updates, and other information simultaneously. When the shit hits the fan, the display could automatically change to a reduced information mode with Friendly vs Foe overlays, air support options, etc.
As the solider becomes more engaged in reality, the cognitive load could be minimized and the heads up display optimized to survivial in close combat situations.
Of course, I'm pulling these examples out of my but. Not being a soldier, I can only imagine what heads-up utility would be useful in combat, but keep in mind that most first-person shooters have peripheral displays containing foe-friend radar, weapon magazine loads, and other combat-helpful data.
Of course, a simple tactical mode button would work just as well...
A company called Constellation 3D claims to have done this circa Y2K:
The Company is the worldwide leader in the development of high capacity Fluorescent Multilayer Disc and Card (FMD/C) technology. Constellation 3D holds or has made applications for over 120 worldwide patents in the field of optical data storage, and is supported by 65 scientists. Headquartered in New York City, the Company has additional offices and laboratories in Massachusetts, Israel and Russia. More information is available at www.c-3d.net
Actually, during the last election on 11/5, I recall a news blurb extolling the virtues of electronic voting in Florida. The poll worker brought a touchscreen tablet *out to a car in the parking lot* so that an elderly voter could place her vote. I noticed a floppy wire that looked eerily like an antenna hanging off the side of the box, which immeditatelt said to me "wireless network". So, if wireless networking is in fact being used, I'd say their "secure" voting LANs will get cracked by the next general election, if they haven't been already.
To be above suspicion, elections require voting metohds are difficult to forge and have ballots can be confirmed after the fact (re-count). Electronic voting places all points of failure in an unexaminable variable in the system software. If done well, compromise of this system would be difficult if not impossible to detect, and there will be nothing to manually re-count: game over.
How do you *prove* the election was not rigged? Elections must have the appearance of impossibility of being rigged. It is very hard to forge 400,000 ballots with filled in dots (a la standardized tests; they can be both electonically and manually tallied).
The new voting machines in Florida are a exellent example of technology being more unrilable than simpler/cheaper/proven methods.
Logan's Run, the book not the movie, describes a world-wide series of subsurface vacuum transport tunnels called Mazeways. Small 2-4 person capsules offers extremely high-speed transport from any part of the world to another from stations located everywhere. ~20 minute transcontinental travel times make is possible to dash off to Paris like we currently pop out to the mall.
Logan's Run was written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. The movie was made in 1976. The original novel was published in 1967, which clearly makes this "invention" prior art unless it significantly adds something to the implementation.
It amazing me that the same battles seem to be fought as computers infiltrate each new market. In the early 80's, personal computer software publishers did everything in their power to copy protect floppy disks, writing on half tracks, out-of-range tracks, and using other floppy format tricks.
This created a new industry of commercial disk copy utilities, such as Copy2Mac, etc etc which enabled any floppy disk to be duplicated. For years it was an arms race of new protection schemes vs. copy utilities.
If I remember correctly (I was pretty young then), lawsuits were filed against copy utility publishers, which lost, the courts holding that making a personal copy for backup purposes fell under fair use doctrine.
I am sure there are plenty of prior cases which would overthrow the DMCA if a test case would only come to court.
This software copy protection war resulted in: A) Common use of copy utilities by end users B) Eventual resignation by the industry against protecting media: not worth the cost or user inconvience. C) Introduction of hardware dongles for high-ticket software. D) The serial number 'protection' method in common use today for software.
So here we are with music publishers revisiting the same war, and I believe they too will ultimately lose. I believe their actions are the result of old school inertia within the industry, and that ultimately, their business model will necessarily change.
3D may be the next dimension to graphic designers, but has nothing to do with file organization and structure.
Currently, disk contents are arranged in a nested heirarchy. This fits nicely into a desktop-folder-file metaphor. Each file may be enclosed in one folder (which may be enclosed in more folders) which is contained by the desktop. A 1-1-...-1 relationship. Aliases are currently used to sidestep this structure and randomly access files outside of this struture.
It seems to me the next step is a relational file system. In this system, the physical location of a file is mostly irrelevant. Just like in a relational database, all files may be displayed by search criteria. An OS would have default views which would show "all user created data", "all system applications", etc. Each view is merely a database report which could be further refined.
A XML-ish standard structure for embedding attributes about each file (metadata) would be very useful. File type, creator, preferred editor, preferred viewer, and other user defined attributes, as well as some content-based indexing would make this possible. Users could have their own file system views based on search criteria of file attributes. It would then be trivial to view "all html documents containing meeting notes from last week" (files matching 3 attributes).
Files would no longer merely be viewable by heirarchial location, although you could still view by directory structure for maintenance, housekeeping, and organization.
Window management is another big deal I'd like to resolve. Layering of windows places the burden of managing the display on the user. Why can't my OS handle much of that for me?
I applied at Apple for a senior UI design position several years prior to OSX , presented many of these ideas in the interview, and was told, in essence, they were more interested in animated widgets than reinventing the desktop. Now Apple has undermined use of metadata in OSX. It's sad to see a company once so keen in user interface to take a step backward, instead of some forward direction.
It's also sad to read about such crap as in this article being presented as the next step. Geesh. What a maroon! I've been hearing about 3D interfaces since at least 1990 and have yet to see one with any promise. At best they are eye candy. At worst, they are a counter-intuitive kludge from forcing a concept onto functional need. (Ahem. It flows the other way, fellas...)
A directory structure is ill-suited to conveying file metadata because:
* files cannot be located with other files relating to the same project, making file management across multiple projects/efforts, data archiving and deleting obsolete files more difficult.
* it is trivial to place a file in the wrong directory, breaking the system. Metadata should be assigned by the creating application, and editable by the user from some obscure location or utility.
* your method can only be used to convey ONE piece of information
Some file systems (MacOS) currently use metadata to store attributes such as file type and creator, so that a document is always correctly identified iconically, knows what application to use to open itself, and other application know (without testing the file) if they can parse the file.
I agree that metadata is underused. We need more metadata about file attributes.
1) Voting by itself is not the solution.
An informed electorate, knowledgeable of the candidates, issues, positions, and track record is essential. This is difficult because campaigns and news coverage rarely deal with real issues and debates are structured to make them into merely dual press conferences. Would you rather more uninformed people dilute your (presumably informed) vote? Standardized voters guides for all elections may be a solution.
2) Candidates often bear little real difference.
I believe most registered non-voters are apathetic because they see the outcome to make little if any difference. A binding none-of-the-above option at the polls may be a solution, allowing voters to reject both candidates and demand new ones in another election might help alleviate this apathy.
3) Contributions should be limited.
Corporations do not vote, so they influenece elections via monetary contributions. This money is used for propaganda which drowns out attempts for impartial news coverage. There has been much talk (by corporations and the politicians they own) that limiting contributions limits their 1st Ammendent rights to free speech. Money is not speech. Funding ad campaigns for toads is blatent manipulation of the electorate. Soft money should be eliminated, contributions should have small caps, and accepting payola should be an enforced jailable felony. This would restore confidence in our representatives, and probably bring more voters out of their understandable apathy.
It's incredible to imagine any fanatical organization attracting a dozen suicide terrorists for 4 teams of ~3 per plane.
What seems more likely is that only the terrorist pilots knew these were suicide missions and that other members of the team were given other explanations for their mission goals.
I have heard hearsay accounts of children being recruited used as couriers, but in fact unknowingly carried bombs to their own demise. The best suicide bomber would be one unwary of their purpose and personal death, less likely to tip off security with anxiety or have second thoughts and spoil the plan. After the fact, no one is alive to tell other members in the terrorist organization and affect morale/ discredit leadership.
This offers another possible explanation to the crash in PA, where fellow terrorists may have discovered their true purpose en route and wrestled the plane to the ground, in addition to other possibilities voiced, such as military shootdown or victim heroics.
Slashdot Mirror
This is why a new member of the development team was added in the 80s: the user interface designer, or human factors architect. This person sits between developers, management, and marketing to ensure that what is built is appropriate for the users.
This can be a winning combination with a qualified designer. Many designers do not have the depth and the field has gotten a bad name from them, but for many efforts the user interface design is the glue which holds together large projects: defines most of the functional requirements, gives the software a framework for the developers to build-upon, and ensures that the software will be accepted by end users.
There are numerous software products which could benefit from quality interface design as part of the development process.
Unfortunately, in this sluggish economy, these softer skills as seen as non-essential, as they wonder why their tech support lines are saturated and their customers pray for the competition to offer something better.
I already pay tax in order to use the "toll road". The state charges me sales tax for my internet access.
Additonal taxes based on online sales are more akin to intrastate tarrifs.
An adaptive computer interface which dynamically changes based on fear-level may be useful.
Special situations call for special tools. Even in Star Trek (TOG) they have tactical display modes when the ship enters combat.
A heads-up display may typically consume a good portion of the soldiers cognitive and visual capability, displaying squads current location, patrol path, intelligence updates, and other information simultaneously. When the shit hits the fan, the display could automatically change to a reduced information mode with Friendly vs Foe overlays, air support options, etc.
As the solider becomes more engaged in reality, the cognitive load could be minimized and the heads up display optimized to survivial in close combat situations.
Of course, I'm pulling these examples out of my but. Not being a soldier, I can only imagine what heads-up utility would be useful in combat, but keep in mind that most first-person shooters have peripheral displays containing foe-friend radar, weapon magazine loads, and other combat-helpful data.
Of course, a simple tactical mode button would work just as well...
I always wondered when they would invent the *macrowave* oven...
Maritime Law has specific verbage about how long a ship at sea may remain unoccupied before it is deemed salvage.
What about Space Law?
{their web site is down]
Actually, during the last election on 11/5, I recall a news blurb extolling the virtues of electronic voting in Florida. The poll worker brought a touchscreen tablet *out to a car in the parking lot* so that an elderly voter could place her vote. I noticed a floppy wire that looked eerily like an antenna hanging off the side of the box, which immeditatelt said to me "wireless network". So, if wireless networking is in fact being used, I'd say their "secure" voting LANs will get cracked by the next general election, if they haven't been already.
To be above suspicion, elections require voting metohds are difficult to forge and have ballots can be confirmed after the fact (re-count). Electronic voting places all points of failure in an unexaminable variable in the system software. If done well, compromise of this system would be difficult if not impossible to detect, and there will be nothing to manually re-count: game over.
How do you *prove* the election was not rigged? Elections must have the appearance of impossibility of being rigged. It is very hard to forge 400,000 ballots with filled in dots (a la standardized tests; they can be both electonically and manually tallied).
The new voting machines in Florida are a exellent example of technology being more unrilable than simpler/cheaper/proven methods.
Logan's Run, the book not the movie, describes a world-wide series of subsurface vacuum transport tunnels called Mazeways. Small 2-4 person capsules offers extremely high-speed transport from any part of the world to another from stations located everywhere. ~20 minute transcontinental travel times make is possible to dash off to Paris like we currently pop out to the mall.
Logan's Run was written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. The movie was made in 1976. The original novel was published in 1967, which clearly makes this "invention" prior art unless it significantly adds something to the implementation.
I think you mean: "UCE": Unsolicited Cosmic Ether
It amazing me that the same battles seem to be fought as computers infiltrate each new market. In the early 80's, personal computer software publishers did everything in their power to copy protect floppy disks, writing on half tracks, out-of-range tracks, and using other floppy format tricks.
This created a new industry of commercial disk copy utilities, such as Copy2Mac, etc etc which enabled any floppy disk to be duplicated. For years it was an arms race of new protection schemes vs. copy utilities.
If I remember correctly (I was pretty young then), lawsuits were filed against copy utility publishers, which lost, the courts holding that making a personal copy for backup purposes fell under fair use doctrine.
I am sure there are plenty of prior cases which would overthrow the DMCA if a test case would only come to court.
This software copy protection war resulted in:
A) Common use of copy utilities by end users
B) Eventual resignation by the industry against protecting media: not worth the cost or user inconvience.
C) Introduction of hardware dongles for high-ticket software.
D) The serial number 'protection' method in common use today for software.
So here we are with music publishers revisiting the same war, and I believe they too will ultimately lose. I believe their actions are the result of old school inertia within the industry, and that ultimately, their business model will necessarily change.
My keyboard function keys only go up to F15 !!!
3D may be the next dimension to graphic designers, but has nothing to do with file organization and structure.
Currently, disk contents are arranged in a nested heirarchy. This fits nicely into a desktop-folder-file metaphor. Each file may be enclosed in one folder (which may be enclosed in more folders) which is contained by the desktop. A 1-1-...-1 relationship. Aliases are currently used to sidestep this structure and randomly access files outside of this struture.
It seems to me the next step is a relational file system. In this system, the physical location of a file is mostly irrelevant. Just like in a relational database, all files may be displayed by search criteria. An OS would have default views which would show "all user created data", "all system applications", etc. Each view is merely a database report which could be further refined.
A XML-ish standard structure for embedding attributes about each file (metadata) would be very useful. File type, creator, preferred editor, preferred viewer, and other user defined attributes, as well as some content-based indexing would make this possible. Users could have their own file system views based on search criteria of file attributes. It would then be trivial to view "all html documents containing meeting notes from last week" (files matching 3 attributes).
Files would no longer merely be viewable by heirarchial location, although you could still view by directory structure for maintenance, housekeeping, and organization.
Window management is another big deal I'd like to resolve. Layering of windows places the burden of managing the display on the user. Why can't my OS handle much of that for me?
I applied at Apple for a senior UI design position several years prior to OSX , presented many of these ideas in the interview, and was told, in essence, they were more interested in animated widgets than reinventing the desktop. Now Apple has undermined use of metadata in OSX. It's sad to see a company once so keen in user interface to take a step backward, instead of some forward direction.
It's also sad to read about such crap as in this article being presented as the next step. Geesh. What a maroon! I've been hearing about 3D interfaces since at least 1990 and have yet to see one with any promise. At best they are eye candy. At worst, they are a counter-intuitive kludge from forcing a concept onto functional need. (Ahem. It flows the other way, fellas...)
-c!
A directory structure is ill-suited to conveying file metadata because:
* files cannot be located with other files relating to the same project, making file management across multiple projects/efforts, data archiving and deleting obsolete files more difficult.
* it is trivial to place a file in the wrong directory, breaking the system. Metadata should be assigned by the creating application, and editable by the user from some obscure location or utility.
* your method can only be used to convey ONE piece of information
Some file systems (MacOS) currently use metadata to store attributes such as file type and creator, so that a document is always correctly identified iconically, knows what application to use to open itself, and other application know (without testing the file) if they can parse the file.
I agree that metadata is underused. We need more metadata about file attributes.
1) Voting by itself is not the solution.
An informed electorate, knowledgeable of the candidates, issues, positions, and track record is essential. This is difficult because campaigns and news coverage rarely deal with real issues and debates are structured to make them into merely dual press conferences. Would you rather more uninformed people dilute your (presumably informed) vote? Standardized voters guides for all elections may be a solution.
2) Candidates often bear little real difference.
I believe most registered non-voters are apathetic because they see the outcome to make little if any difference. A binding none-of-the-above option at the polls may be a solution, allowing voters to reject both candidates and demand new ones in another election might help alleviate this apathy.
3) Contributions should be limited.
Corporations do not vote, so they influenece elections via monetary contributions. This money is used for propaganda which drowns out attempts for impartial news coverage. There has been much talk (by corporations and the politicians they own) that limiting contributions limits their 1st Ammendent rights to free speech. Money is not speech. Funding ad campaigns for toads is blatent manipulation of the electorate. Soft money should be eliminated, contributions should have small caps, and accepting payola should be an enforced jailable felony. This would restore confidence in our representatives, and probably bring more voters out of their understandable apathy.
BTW: I vote.
It's incredible to imagine any fanatical organization attracting a dozen suicide terrorists for 4 teams of ~3 per plane.
What seems more likely is that only the terrorist pilots knew these were suicide missions and that other members of the team were given other explanations for their mission goals.
I have heard hearsay accounts of children being recruited used as couriers, but in fact unknowingly carried bombs to their own demise. The best suicide bomber would be one unwary of their purpose and personal death, less likely to tip off security with anxiety or have second thoughts and spoil the plan. After the fact, no one is alive to tell other members in the terrorist organization and affect morale/ discredit leadership.
This offers another possible explanation to the crash in PA, where fellow terrorists may have discovered their true purpose en route and wrestled the plane to the ground, in addition to other possibilities voiced, such as military shootdown or victim heroics.