Courts don't understand Metcalf's Law of networks. Most people don't get it. They don't understand how eBay's actions harm the entire web. It is sad actually.
However, will I pay $9.95 a month for this like you would? Probably not.
Question: Does this mean that advertisements will be excluded? It would be crappy to pay $9.95 and be forced to hear advertisements too. My take on the whole thing is that people will get spanked both ways. I suppose it is this kind of thing that that makes me state that I don't need any kind of fancy-dancy juiced up digital radio...
With Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, and the like, who needs any radio? Get the right player for your car and you're all set too. No channel hunting, just music that you want. All pull, no push, thank you very much.
From this perspective, McDonalds is an abomination, serving up homogenized, tasteless garbage just for the sake of a fast meal.
...then serve me a great tasting, delicate, non-garbage fast meal. The key is not the taste. It is the speed. Oh, and some people actually like to go from place to place and find the same food. It is comfortable. By definition people like comfort. While there are better burgers, there are many more that totally suck. McDonalds basically provides a guarantee of consistency and speed. And Happy Meal trinkets.
Look, the important thing is not that we mimic the human mind or human thinking. Why do we want machines that think and act like humans? What good is that? So we can understand ourselves? Well, that is silly since the mechanisms that drive our intelligence are simply not going to be the same as the machines we make with human intelligence. That is, a computer with human intelligence tells us nothing about what really makes human intelligence actually work. The best a machine can do is ghost our cognitive economy, it cannot actually have it.
But that might be beside the point. More important is that we build and understand machines that have a higher level of intelligence than us. That intelligence might be nothing like a human's intelligence, but that's fine. As we all know, computers have a different kind of intelligence than us. And that is interesting. That should spark our creativity and that should get our juices going.
Here's an analogy. Suppose I build a telephone out of rubber bands and paper clips. It acts just like your favorite phone. But, is that interesting really? I mean, is the fact that we have a "really cool copy of a phone" all that interesting in terms of what-it-is-to-be-a-phone? Of course not. Instead, it is interesting that the damn thing is so complex and useful, even though it was made from rubber bands and paper clips.
Forget mocking the human experience. We get that each day, don't we? We get it (we're human). Let's look at other kinds of intelligences, based on machine mechanisms.
John S. Rhodes WebWord.com -- Industrial Strength Usability
(1) Douglas Adams cares about fish. "So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish" (2) Penguins like fish. (3) Linux mascot is a penguin. (4) Therfore, Linux likes fish. (5) Damn, that's not it. (6) Therefore, Douglass Adams cares about responding quickly to our questions. (7) No, That's not it. (8) Penguins like Linux. That's it. (9) Uh, no, you idiot. That's not the answer. (10) What is the Answer? (42) This space left intentionally blank.
Animation, Titan A.E., and Usability is an interview I conducted with Mayo Tirado, one of the animation experts behind Titan A.E. He talks about the animation tools he uses, the books he's read, and the web sites he visits. He also has a couple of reasonable comments on usability and web development in general.
The really sad thing is that this is more true than you might think. We've seen time and again that superior technology doesn't automatically "win" in the marketplace. Savvy marketing and sales are critically important business functions. People might think that.oog is stupid, or they might not. The point is that that stinking file extension really is important.
We recently completed an interview with Mayo Tirado, an animation guru who worked at Fox Animation Studios in Phoenix on Titan A.E. We asked him questions such as:
* Tell us about your work on the upcoming movie Titan A.E.
* What tools did you use?
* How important are the "small things" in a movie such as Titan A.E., such as texture and lighting?
"Some reports have been circulating in some of the online press about a 'Gnutella Worm'. This 'worm' does not exploit any weaknesses in gnutella itself, but rather weaknesses in the Windows operating system and more importantly, the user. This 'worm' will not affect anyone who doesn't manually download it, and subsequently manually run it. Gnutella does not execute any files it downloads. Be smart, don't run anything from an untrusted source without checking it first. This is an exploit of human gullibility and a weak operating system, nothing more."
His article is just a starting point for a conversation. It's the comments you read and write that will give you some insight if not an exact answer. More talk is still necessary.
Aren't we supposed to move at Net speed? Aren't we fast enough to play the game? The bottom line is that there is always all this talk. There are so many starting points that things are just too damn muddy. There are a thousand points to start from but no one is moving. (The only thing moving are lips -- chatter chatter chatter, talk talk talk.)
So I ask again, what is the beautiful vision? Give us the end state desired and perhaps some specifications. This is a sharp bunch of people but we need to know what is really needed. We'll built it and set it up. Without tangible goals, we cannot move forward. We're in a gutter without an end state but no one is willing to stand up and offer the beautiful vision. What is the geek battle plan?
Maybe this is all talk...maybe there is no beautiful vision. Maybe it is this simple -- There is no spoon.
Once again I have to ask the question: What are people doing about corporations taking over the Net? What is Katz doing? Is he really raising awareness? Did his article move you? Are you going to act on his ideas and suggestions?
The funny thing is that Katz is actually a good writer. Maybe not a good writer for geeks, but a good writer overall. But this article just doesn't cut it. It is talk-talk-talk. Give me a damn list of things I can do. Give us a list of things we can do. What action does he expect?
Give me buttons to push, applications to write, web sites to create, programs to code. Give me ideas about databases that would rock. Where are the checkboxes? We're geeks... give us geek (brain) food. Feed us with algorithms and specifications, not fluttery ideas and ra-ra-ra, go team.
I'm going to yak if I hear too much more about the Evil Empire of Corporatism. What are the steps to improvement Katz? Where are the action items ? And what about those of us that work for an Evil Empire Company? We need $$$ and we have people to feed.
If you could have anything Katzmeister, what would it be? Give us the beautiful vision.
The status bar *does* reveal the url of the page it links to - just like an untreated status bar would do. It also provides ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMENTARY. I guess that's a bad thing. I can't see why, but I guess I'll take your word for it. URL = good, URL + additional information = bad. Because you say so.
I don't see the URL. I only see the "additional" information. I've got some pocket change. I'm willing to buy a clue if I need one...
Wake Up, The Site Sucked
on
Boo No More
·
· Score: 1
The core problem with Boo.com is that it had extremely poor usability. People could not use the damn site without plugins and other crap running on their system. It was anti-minimalist and did not work on standard configuration machines.
Is there a flaw with e-commerce and e-business? Absolutely not. Instead, it is a failure to understand users and their needs. Buying online is painful enough without the bells and whistles. The bells are loud and the whistles pierce the ear. Give me a plain vanilla web site so I can buy what I need. Make it easy!
I see in the future that what will happen is that large companies will need to fight large companies. The small guy gets crushed more and more each day. However, there is a paradox. If it takes a large organization, i.e., a Big Company (TM), to fight another large organization, then you still have some large organization calling the shots. One of them is going to win. And, even though the large organization is made up of individuals, you still have bureaucracy, red tape, legal headaches and so forth. The individual still is a loser.
So, when is all of this so-called web activism going to kick in. For years I've heard about how individuals count. How the small voice matters. "You can make a difference!" Well, every day it seems to be and more hogwash. Even the boisterous readers, posers, losers, geeks, CIOs, and programmers visiting Slashdot haven't kicked ass. Why is it that even the best and strongest groups on the web don't actually fight this crap? So, we might be "up in arms" but nothing comes of it. We bitch and move on to the next post. We wait for Katz to chime in so that we can move on and bitch about his writing. When does the action happen? We're pissed...how do we channel it?
I admit that this is stupid post. I'm not suggesting a damn thing. I'm not any better than the other crybabies and complainers. This really sucks. If only I could click a button and send my frustration to the appropriate idiots...
The blast of the shotgun won't be the same without my subwoofer. However, if I aim my Palm III in the right direction and use the infrared beam, maybe I can get some satisfaction when another player's Palm explodes...
Recently there was a web design contest that had a very interesting constraint. All entries had to be less than 5K, with no server side help (Note: The contest is closed now). There were over 1,000 entries and it really generated a lot of buzz. Many egos are at stake here! The FAQ indicates that there were five DHTML recreations of Space Invaders, four versions of Simon, and six 3d Maze games! All less than 5K. People can do more with less.
The reason I mention this is that file size, download time, and bandwidth are critically important to all kinds of people. The contest I mention reflects a kind interesting return to the basics. What can you do with as little as possible? People of all types, from programmers to artists to system admins, actually want to do more with less, but they don't for a number of reasons. Argh!
Perhaps the internet pipes that companies are building are less necessary than we are being told. Certainly the need would decrease if we could remove layer after layer of bloat.
While some applications need the power, many don't. More and more features don't necessarily mean you're getting a better application. Quite the opposite is often true.
Theory: More bandwidth is being requested because too people are lazy or because executives are too stupid to facilitate good coding and project management. The average geek certainly doesn't want to be lazy; the average geek is detail oriented and they want to kick ass. Small, useful applications are beatiful things. In any event, I wonder how much a pipe most people really would need to have if we were all able to be more effecient from day to day.
John S. Rhodes Usability and a whole lot more... http://webword.com
Slashdot Mirror
Courts don't understand Metcalf's Law of networks. Most people don't get it. They don't understand how eBay's actions harm the entire web. It is sad actually.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com Usability Vortal
Fine. I can live with your point of view.
However, will I pay $9.95 a month for this like you would? Probably not.
Question: Does this mean that advertisements will be excluded? It would be crappy to pay $9.95 and be forced to hear advertisements too. My take on the whole thing is that people will get spanked both ways. I suppose it is this kind of thing that that makes me state that I don't need any kind of fancy-dancy juiced up digital radio...
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com -- Usability Vortal
With Napster, Gnutella, Freenet, and the like, who needs any radio? Get the right player for your car and you're all set too. No channel hunting, just music that you want. All pull, no push, thank you very much.
From this perspective, McDonalds is an abomination, serving up homogenized, tasteless garbage just for the sake of a fast meal.
...then serve me a great tasting, delicate, non-garbage fast meal. The key is not the taste. It is the speed. Oh, and some people actually like to go from place to place and find the same food. It is comfortable. By definition people like comfort. While there are better burgers, there are many more that totally suck. McDonalds basically provides a guarantee of consistency and speed. And Happy Meal trinkets.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com -- Usability Vortal
If you care, here is the company profile on Network Solutions.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com -- Industrial Strength Usability
Web Economy Bullshit Generator
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com -- Industrial Strength Usability
Look, the important thing is not that we mimic the human mind or human thinking. Why do we want machines that think and act like humans? What good is that? So we can understand ourselves? Well, that is silly since the mechanisms that drive our intelligence are simply not going to be the same as the machines we make with human intelligence. That is, a computer with human intelligence tells us nothing about what really makes human intelligence actually work. The best a machine can do is ghost our cognitive economy, it cannot actually have it.
But that might be beside the point. More important is that we build and understand machines that have a higher level of intelligence than us. That intelligence might be nothing like a human's intelligence, but that's fine. As we all know, computers have a different kind of intelligence than us. And that is interesting. That should spark our creativity and that should get our juices going.
Here's an analogy. Suppose I build a telephone out of rubber bands and paper clips. It acts just like your favorite phone. But, is that interesting really? I mean, is the fact that we have a "really cool copy of a phone" all that interesting in terms of what-it-is-to-be-a-phone? Of course not. Instead, it is interesting that the damn thing is so complex and useful, even though it was made from rubber bands and paper clips.
Forget mocking the human experience. We get that each day, don't we? We get it (we're human). Let's look at other kinds of intelligences, based on machine mechanisms.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com -- Industrial Strength Usability
Speaking of Titan A.E., ahem, I did an interview with one of the animation dudes behind the movie:
Animation, Titan A.E., and Usability
WebWord.com -- The Industrial Strength Usability Vortal
(1) Douglas Adams cares about fish. "So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish"
(2) Penguins like fish.
(3) Linux mascot is a penguin.
(4) Therfore, Linux likes fish.
(5) Damn, that's not it.
(6) Therefore, Douglass Adams cares about responding quickly to our questions.
(7) No, That's not it.
(8) Penguins like Linux. That's it.
(9) Uh, no, you idiot. That's not the answer.
(10) What is the Answer?
(42) This space left intentionally blank.
Animation, Titan A.E., and Usability is an interview I conducted with Mayo Tirado, one of the animation experts behind Titan A.E. He talks about the animation tools he uses, the books he's read, and the web sites he visits. He also has a couple of reasonable comments on usability and web development in general.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Vortal)
The really sad thing is that this is more true than you might think. We've seen time and again that superior technology doesn't automatically "win" in the marketplace. Savvy marketing and sales are critically important business functions. People might think that .oog is stupid, or they might not. The point is that that stinking file extension really is important.
FEAR OOG!
(1) OOG, The Object Orientation Game
(2) Welkom bij Tennisvereniging Oog In Al
(3) Oog TV (Has a cool interface. Check it out!)
(4) Out of Game (OOG)
(5) OOG Radio!
(6) Yes kids, Oog in Oog (Hmm...does "oog" mean "eye" in Dutch.)
(7) Oh baby!Even more oog in oog
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Vortal)
Records Research via Google's Open Directory Project pages.
Ahh! What are we going to do? Help! Help!
Video Games and Children
Violent video games unplugged by King County health board
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Portal)
We recently completed an interview with Mayo Tirado, an animation guru who worked at Fox Animation Studios in Phoenix on Titan A.E. We asked him questions such as:
* Tell us about your work on the upcoming movie Titan A.E.
* What tools did you use?
* How important are the "small things" in a movie such as Titan A.E., such as texture and lighting?
You can read the interview here:
>> http://webword.com/interviews/tirado.html
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Vortal)
And I quote, from the Gnutella home page:
"Some reports have been circulating in some of the online press about a 'Gnutella Worm'. This 'worm' does not exploit any weaknesses in gnutella itself, but rather weaknesses in the Windows operating system and more importantly, the user. This 'worm' will not affect anyone who doesn't manually download it, and subsequently manually run it. Gnutella does not execute any files it downloads. Be smart, don't run anything from an untrusted source without checking it first. This is an exploit of human gullibility and a weak operating system, nothing more."
Gnutella powerful, humans weak. Grunt, grunt.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Vortal)
His article is just a starting point for a conversation. It's the comments you read and write that will give you some insight if not an exact answer. More talk is still necessary.
Aren't we supposed to move at Net speed? Aren't we fast enough to play the game? The bottom line is that there is always all this talk. There are so many starting points that things are just too damn muddy. There are a thousand points to start from but no one is moving. (The only thing moving are lips -- chatter chatter chatter, talk talk talk.)
So I ask again, what is the beautiful vision? Give us the end state desired and perhaps some specifications. This is a sharp bunch of people but we need to know what is really needed. We'll built it and set it up. Without tangible goals, we cannot move forward. We're in a gutter without an end state but no one is willing to stand up and offer the beautiful vision. What is the geek battle plan?
Maybe this is all talk...maybe there is no beautiful vision. Maybe it is this simple -- There is no spoon.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com
He is giving us powerful words to use with the non-geek so that they might understand.
This is an odd comment. This is forum for geeks. We want more geek-speak, don't we?
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com
Once again I have to ask the question: What are people doing about corporations taking over the Net? What is Katz doing? Is he really raising awareness? Did his article move you? Are you going to act on his ideas and suggestions?
... give us geek (brain) food. Feed us with algorithms and specifications, not fluttery ideas and ra-ra-ra, go team.
The funny thing is that Katz is actually a good writer. Maybe not a good writer for geeks, but a good writer overall. But this article just doesn't cut it. It is talk-talk-talk. Give me a damn list of things I can do. Give us a list of things we can do. What action does he expect?
Give me buttons to push, applications to write, web sites to create, programs to code. Give me ideas about databases that would rock. Where are the checkboxes? We're geeks
I'm going to yak if I hear too much more about the Evil Empire of Corporatism. What are the steps to improvement Katz? Where are the action items ? And what about those of us that work for an Evil Empire Company? We need $$$ and we have people to feed.
If you could have anything Katzmeister, what would it be? Give us the beautiful vision.
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.
The status bar *does* reveal the url of the page it links to - just like an untreated status bar would do. It also provides ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMENTARY. I guess that's a bad thing. I can't see why, but I guess I'll take your word for it. URL = good, URL + additional information = bad. Because you say so.
I don't see the URL. I only see the "additional" information. I've got some pocket change. I'm willing to buy a clue if I need one...
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Vortal)
The core problem with Boo.com is that it had extremely poor usability. People could not use the damn site without plugins and other crap running on their system. It was anti-minimalist and did not work on standard configuration machines.
Is there a flaw with e-commerce and e-business? Absolutely not. Instead, it is a failure to understand users and their needs. Buying online is painful enough without the bells and whistles. The bells are loud and the whistles pierce the ear. Give me a plain vanilla web site so I can buy what I need. Make it easy!
Of course I am biased here...
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com (Usability Vortal)
I see in the future that what will happen is that large companies will need to fight large companies. The small guy gets crushed more and more each day. However, there is a paradox. If it takes a large organization, i.e., a Big Company (TM), to fight another large organization, then you still have some large organization calling the shots. One of them is going to win. And, even though the large organization is made up of individuals, you still have bureaucracy, red tape, legal headaches and so forth. The individual still is a loser.
So, when is all of this so-called web activism going to kick in. For years I've heard about how individuals count. How the small voice matters. "You can make a difference!" Well, every day it seems to be and more hogwash. Even the boisterous readers, posers, losers, geeks, CIOs, and programmers visiting Slashdot haven't kicked ass. Why is it that even the best and strongest groups on the web don't actually fight this crap? So, we might be "up in arms" but nothing comes of it. We bitch and move on to the next post. We wait for Katz to chime in so that we can move on and bitch about his writing. When does the action happen? We're pissed...how do we channel it?
I admit that this is stupid post. I'm not suggesting a damn thing. I'm not any better than the other crybabies and complainers. This really sucks. If only I could click a button and send my frustration to the appropriate idiots...
John S. Rhodes
WebWord.com
"I sincerely hope that Slash is doing, and has been doing, the right thing and simply not keeping any records of anonymous posters."
Well, what is the answer to this one? Do I need to read the FAQ?
The blast of the shotgun won't be the same without my subwoofer. However, if I aim my Palm III in the right direction and use the infrared beam, maybe I can get some satisfaction when another player's Palm explodes...
Palm-frag-o-rama-fest
WebWord.com
Usability, information architecture, and all that stuff
Recently there was a web design contest that had a very interesting constraint. All entries had to be less than 5K, with no server side help (Note: The contest is closed now). There were over 1,000 entries and it really generated a lot of buzz. Many egos are at stake here! The FAQ indicates that there were five DHTML recreations of Space Invaders, four versions of Simon, and six 3d Maze games! All less than 5K. People can do more with less.
The reason I mention this is that file size, download time, and bandwidth are critically important to all kinds of people. The contest I mention reflects a kind interesting return to the basics. What can you do with as little as possible? People of all types, from programmers to artists to system admins, actually want to do more with less, but they don't for a number of reasons. Argh!
Perhaps the internet pipes that companies are building are less necessary than we are being told. Certainly the need would decrease if we could remove layer after layer of bloat.
While some applications need the power, many don't. More and more features don't necessarily mean you're getting a better application. Quite the opposite is often true.
Theory: More bandwidth is being requested because too people are lazy or because executives are too stupid to facilitate good coding and project management. The average geek certainly doesn't want to be lazy; the average geek is detail oriented and they want to kick ass. Small, useful applications are beatiful things. In any event, I wonder how much a pipe most people really would need to have if we were all able to be more effecient from day to day.
John S. Rhodes
Usability and a whole lot more...
http://webword.com
Here is another Lynda Weinman Interview.