Some Thoughts and a Discussion

Late last night I was in a discussion with a friend on the current state of computers and their usefulness to the general public. By general public, I mean to say the people we know, such as our families or friends, who are less technically proficient than we are. Computers are our hobby and livelihood; however, to them, they are confusing tools, boxes of the Unknown. The transcript which follows is from that conversation.

Shawn: Personally, I still think the PC has a seriously long way to go before it’s as intuitive as a television.
Clarkk: Indeed it does.
Shawn: Anyone who has done technical support can testify. PREACH IT!
For every “I tried to download my webpage to my cdrom, but the kids can’t play this game,” there is an equal but opposite, “It’s…I…hold on…no, see it’s…let me just do it for you, ok?”
Clarkk: Yeah. :0 VNC is wonderful for that. Esp. over VPN link to offices half-way around the planet.
Shawn: Yeah. I find myself praying that my sister and bro-law never ever get another computer ever again.
Clarkk: Do they not have one right now?
Shawn: Nope. They’ve had two.
Clarkk: Ah.
Shawn: Granted, they have three kids. But if they have to maintain a computer and keep it running, they’re better off having an Xbox. Actually, if my family gets computers, those machines need to be the most simple, most dumbed-down surfing-the-web devices. Web browsing, writing school papers, storing digital pictures, maybe tracking money. And that is all.
The I-Opener had so much potential because of its extreme simplicity. Perhaps down the road I can build a mini-itx system with an lcd screen, small keyboard, and a stripped-down OS. And hand them a set of USB keychains to carry files on. They understand things like that. Like memory cards for game consoles.
When they log in, a window pops up giving them access to their own file bucket. And they can drag files between their keychain and their bucket, or to a shared bucket. I don’t want them to see a single piece of OS filesystem.
Clarkk: Yeah.
Shawn: They don’t understand guts. They understand objects. Things.
Clarkk: Which is why people came up with the file and folder abstractions. Though, when you have enough files and folders, things still get “interesting”.
Shawn: Yeah. Even now, the file and folder idiom is obsolete.
Clarkk: Well…it has been around since the early 80’s.
Shawn: Yeah, it was created to resemble the idioms of the office to better help offices in their transition to using computers. And HFS held some promise, but Apple is letting it die. A folder for programs. A folder for the system. A folder for prefs. A folder for personal files. Clean.
Clarkk: Apple isn’t letting HFS die…HFS+ is still the native install format for OSX.
Shawn: Ah. heh. Still, it relies on folders and files. Say you have a ton of pictures. You have them clumped together in a pictures pile. Some of those pictures are from a visit to Big Bend. You also have video from your visit to Big Bend, and a pdf brochure of the Big Bend area. How do you organize this?
Most people would clump all the files into one big folder. Others, in a naive effort to be more savvy, might create a subfolder called “Big Bend” and dump everything related into it.
Clarkk: Yeah…
Shawn: The problem comes when you want to view all the pictures you have featuring your little brother. You’d have a clump of pictures to search through, but if you’re not so savvy, you’d probably accidentally skip the Big Bend pix. So a cure would be to copy the pictures, make duplicates in each relevant subfolder. When you ultimately run out of disk space, you go on a cleaning jihad, wherein it’s likely that you’ll unwittingly delete all copies of a duplicate, sending the image off to the aether forever.
Clarkk: The major problem is sheer amount of stuff…and wanting to put it multiple places.
Shawn: Yeah, exactly. I’ve observed people behaving in ways that tend towards this while they were using their laptops. Watch people long enough, you see their habits.
Clarkk: Yeah.
Shawn: Everything gets dumped into “My Documents”, and they scroll and scroll until they find their item to manipulate.
Clarkk: Flickr has some interesting ways to work on things…though you end up working with the images as files until you upload them.
Shawn: Exactly.
Clarkk: Yeah… But i’ve been used to organizing my files for a long time…and can keep enough of where stuff is in my head, that it isn’t painful to do.
Shawn: Yeah, I have my files stored in a certain prescribed, yet inconsistent, hierarchy. Anyone who is unfortunate enough to use my computer will be lost.
Clarkk: Yeah…sounds like me. I can find stuff, but other people would have to grep and so forth.
Shawn: A folder for images. A folder for music. A folder for video. Etc. But even within and between those folders there’s relation and inconsistency. So. What is a solution?
Clarkk: Tags?
Shawn: All the files go in a bucket. When you put them there, you can give them tags, quick blurbs of what the items are. If they’re pictures, you can say where it was taken, who’s in the picture, etc. If it’s a song, the ID3 tag adds detail.
Clarkk: Store all the data in a DB, and access it via other interfaces…. :)
Shawn: Then, you can sort and retrieve. It’s possible to have a user interface that handles “things” in a way that’s relational.
Clarkk: True…but we’ve not moved to interfaces that handle things relationally, and in some cases where we have, they’ve occasionally broken, so there need to be ways to fix them.
Shawn: Yeah, as far as administration of a machine goes, yes there can be an expert mode, just as a webserver has both a public-facing and an internal-facing interface.
The Web is giving us a slew of new ways to handle things. It will be a good day when that flexibility reaches the desktop. Google Desktop is a start.
Clarkk: Other than it stores things off your computer, creating privacy issues.
Shawn: That’s why I said it was a start. :)
Clarkk: :)
Shawn: So users can potentially store, retrieve, and manipulate things of various predefined “types”. If a new thingtype comes into existence, they can add that capability through the UI. More advanced users can create thingtypes as well. This is kind of the tack I’m taking with my website engine, as we may have discussed before.
Clarkk: Ahh. :)
Shawn: Internally, all the Things are in one big bucket. Each Thing is of a certain Thingtype. Each Thingtype has a certain set of ways to look at and manipulate it. You can take Things and put them into Collections. A Thing can be in any number of Collections. I assume Flickr is similar in allowing you to assign an image to any number of sets.
Clarkk: Yeah. Any number of sets, any number of tags on the image, any number of pools (shared sets, basically). Search by tag or tag set.
— Shawn nods
Shawn: This is the methodology people are getting savvy to. This needs to be on their computers. Windows Search, Macintosh Sherlock (or its modern variants), Google Desktop…those are getting close. But not close enough for the Daily Joe or Sometimes Sue.
Clarkk: Yeah. Spotlight is the later variant of Sherlock on OSX. Though I think Sherlock is still included.
Shawn: Once people are in a web browser, they understand things. Once they close their browser, they are lost in their own front yard. It’s not a condemnation on them, it’s a condemnation on the technology.

What I find most condemning is that no major software or hardware manufacturer has stepped forward publicly to reddress the idioms that they’ve established their businesses upon. A lot of us understand the folder/file/desktop idiom. A lot of us comprehend the guts of our computer systems. But, even with the current state of User Interface design, most of the general public is completely lost and dazed when placed in front of a computer and asked to do a simple search for anything. It becomes increasingly complicated once you have a lot of naive users with a large install base to support (“naive” here is not intended as an insult).

Most operations a typical user needs to do are through a web browser; however, on owning and controlling their own machine, they are left with a heap of confusion. Popups convince them their system needs “cleaning software”. Unscrupulous vendors offer software at premium price to allow users to sort and manage their files, a feature natively offered by their operating system for free. Vendors of prebuilt systems offer “desktop launcher apps” that allow users to click on graphical pictures representing various functions like word processing, music playback, email, etcetera, but once clicked and the main applications launch, users are left to contend with the operating system and its filesystem underneath on their own.

The core of a public-class operating system does not need to be simple; underneath can exist a bulk of maintenance apps, firewalling, networking suites, and so on, things to make the computer work. The user interface, however, does need to be this simplified, object-relative idiom if computers are ever going to be as intuitive as any other piece of consumer electronics.

Read the Anti-Mac Interface, a paper published in 1996 by Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen, which got me to thinking about the state of our User Interface idioms and where they could be greatly improved upon.

Destruction, Anniversary.

Three days ago, I had a dream where I was hanging out, drinking or whatever. Surrounded by friends. And I managed to smoke up an entire pack of cigarettes. With much aplomb. I felt guilt, regret. Then I woke up, took a breath. Realized that it was only a dream.

After all of this time, the craving is still there; the hunger for the smell; the feel of breathing through a column of burning tobacco; the clench of the lungs; the rush. The addiction. It wanes, it gets forgotten, but every so often it rears its head and smiles. This carries a special poignancy with me today because, offically, this is my second anniversary as a non-smoker. February 18th, 2004 is when I quit for good. Borrowing a turn of phrase from reformed alcoholics, I am two years old. I could say it’s my second life, but this life is exactly the same as the life I had before I started smoking at age 23.

Do I regret quitting? Yes, of course. It was my crutch, my fixation. The heady buzz smoothed away my anxiety. But I’m damned happy that I quit. I can breathe now. I can dream now. I’m able to see and feel the benefits of quitting. It’s the final end to one of my most despicable acts of self-destruction. May that part of me be forever destroyed.

Rest In Peace, Shawn the Smoker. October 1995 – February 2004

A Visit, a Revisit

Back in November, I got a call from my ex-girlfriend MaRanda. She had decided on moving to Los Angeles from North Carolina, and had requested to stay with me in Austin for a few days on her drive across the country. With having not seen her since 1998, I jumped on the opportunity and opened my door for her eventual trip two months later.

Her visit this week was nothing short of incredible. She arrived late Tuesday night after eleven hours on the road and was ready for a drink, a laugh, and some rest. Wednesday, we went around town; I tried to show her stuff that was “uniquely Austin”, and mostly succeeded. Had breakfast at Starseeds. Gave her a tour of my workplace (I luckily had enough time to request the day off). Drove her down 2222 and down 360. Showed her the dotcom where I used to work. Gave her a brief overview of Zilker, Restaurant Row, Lamar through Pease Park, and across to Tazza Fresca where she went nutso for the Groovy Lube sign. Heh. She got to meet several of my longtime friends and felt right at home.

She decided to extend her stay another day. So on Thursday we had brunch at Magnolia Cafe, went to the boat ramp at the end of Lake Austin Blvd., took pictures. Went to the Capitol Building (she did visit the state’s capitol, after all). Got pictures of her doing obscene gestures in the Senate and Representatives chambers. Then we went to Spiderhouse and hung out enjoying the vibe. She met more friends.

It took every ounce of her will to stay to her plan of driving the rest of the way to L.A. She has obligations. She has people waiting on her. But I told her, everyone told her, that if the L.A. experience should be a failure, then she has safe haven here. It was nice to have her around, and it would be nice if she stayed, but I would never wish for her to betray her plans.

In seeing her again, in speaking face to face, I remembered what it was that attracted me to her back in ’97. Even after these years part of that is still there. It’s that we work out well. We fit. There is chemistry, history. I feel comfortable around her to an extent greater than usual around others. That counts for a lot.

Her visit was great. We had fun; reconnected. I’m still trying to digest and remember all that we did and said. It was a heady two and a half days; we went nonstop, and slept little. No time for sleeping in. And we barely scratched the surface of what it’s like here, how well we’d fit as roomates or neighbors. Trying to cram years of this-is-who-I-am into 58 hours. A Sisyphean task. A bittersweet time; fun with the knowledge of the end. I guess that’s what made the visit more heady.

A little is not enough.

I hope things work out well for her in L.A. I do. Sure, I’ll miss her, but I hope for the best for her, for me.

Thanksgiving Ruminations from Texarkana

(written on Thursday, 11/24/2005 23:58:55. Thanksgiving day.)

So of course the high that I’ve been experiencing the whole week would end like a car crash this morning. I got the sleep I’ve been missing, but due to the cold, the uncomfortable “bed”, and my nieces, nephew, and sister, the sleep I got wasn’t worth much, so I slept for ten, maybe eleven hours. The moment I open my eyes, glance at the blinds, and look up to the ceiling, I started seeing spots. Thanks to a casual glance while waking up, I got a migraine, first thing in my morning. On thanksgiving. So I took some acetaminophen and hoped for the best. The kids were no help, but I hung on long enough to take a shower after they left. By then, the spots were gone and the migraine was a dull throb. Picked up my mother and we headed off to my aunt Janet’s sister’s house for dinner.

Dinner was good, of course. Ate a plateful, had some dessert. Played quiet, didn’t have much to say because the migraine recovery. Some time later we all left, and I dropped my mother off back at her home and I drove on. Went to Liz and Laura’s house, hung out with them for a while. The girls went to deliver a plate to their spry 92-year-old great aunt, so I chatted with Doug, Liz’s husband, for a good hour or so. Longest chat I’ve had with him. Had a good time shooting the shit. The girls came back, Jon woke up from his nap, and we had a few laughs on the back porch. Came back inside, chatted some more, and then the television got turned on and we somehow stopped talking. Funny when that happens.

After some hour or so of my second helping of the “That 70’s Show” marathon today, I decided to head on. Went driving around, decided to plug up my laptop, get some GPS data, do a little bit of wardriving, and now I’m here again, IHOP, tapping away on my laptop again. The cashier/hostess remembered me from last night and recommended the waiter to seat me somewhere near a power outlet, just like I requested last night. Yeah, she remembered. Someone should give her a raise.

The problem I have with my time is knowing how to spend it. When I’m home for long stretches of days, my time is spent sleeping short hours, watching television, doing a whole bunch of nothing, making no plans, seeing the few friends I have, and leaving their houses so late that I really don’t want to drive around to check things out. The problem is filling my time in a memorable, quality fashion. I think, now that the holiday and my day at OBU are out of the way, that I should follow up on some plans I made, y’know, some ideas. I would like to track down my friends Eddie and Michelle. It’s been over 5 years since I last saw them, and I hear they keep asking about me. It will be really good to see them again. Also, if things get too slow, I’ll grab some of my friends and go to an empty parking lot somewhere to do the burning mushrooms floating newspaper thing I saw my Austin friends doing behind Mojo’s some years ago. There’s things to do, y’know? Hell, I could show pictures to my family. I think I’ll do that tomorrow.

Ah, yeah. Texarkana life. Some drunk dude just came up to me, asked me if I was lookin’ at Playboy on this thing. You could smell it on his breath. Heh. And…I just saw some other dude walking around with a UT Longhorns ball camp on. I just can’t escape that, not even for one weekend. And, AND, just to show how connected this town is to the pulse of the fashion nation (MTV), last night I saw some real emo kids, the kind that look EXACTLY LIKE some emo kids I saw back at Spiderhouse. It…was…creepy. Seriously, same look.

Liek omg this is so going in my eljay.

The Trip Home, Trip to Ouachita

(written on Wednesday, 11/23/2005 10:33:39 PM)

Whirlwind. Past 24 hours. Past week. It’s Thanksgiving holiday, my first trip home since Easter, and I’ve been going and going. Since my convalescence this past weekend, I’ve been running on some kind of edge. I’ve noticed it. Alertness. Awakeness, even in the lack of sleep. It’s all the preparations for the trip. The getting the car ready, the packing, the attention to making things happen. In the course of 2 days I hacked up a script to log what it reads from a borrowed GPS receiver. The logs from my drives are beautiful. Pages of useful data of just me…driving to Texarkana last night and, today, Ouachita.

Yeah, I went. Since I was in the neighborhood, loosely speaking, I took the hour-long trip up to Arkadelphia to see my alma mater. This December will mark my ten years since I was a student there; December 14, 1995 was my last day of enrollment. And though I’ve been back to OBU two or three times since in 1996 and 1999, this time around had an extra impact, a certain amount of poignance. It’s weird. It’s good to see the places I still sometimes happily, sometimes ashamedly, sometimes frightfully dream about and remember. And it’s creepy to see the changes, to see which buildings are torn down, which are brand new, and which are still around in all their mid-90’s glory. I’ve been away from OBU for long enough that the act of looking at the campus inspired few heavy emotional responses, and the memories that arrived on first trigger were cold, matter-of-fact memories; place names, hidden areas, geographic layout, things no longer there. But the fallout, the memories that return to me after I saw those places, those memories are at once both warm like fire and cold like an Arkadelphia winter, and they’ve sparked tonight’s firestorm of emotions.

It’s a mouthful, and I’m still trying to ruminate and digest today’s trip.

I shot around 2 1/2 rolls of film, just buildings, spaces, surroundings. No people. The fact that the campus was quiet, that school was out the day before the holiday (I had thought they’d be open), made things empty and solitary, but after my 4 summers spent on campus, the experience of the silent emptiness there wasn’t so alien to me. I did drive up there hoping to visit with old staff and faculty still there and to do some business with my school records, which didn’t happen, but just the experience of being back was enough to justify everything.

In some sense it was the Ouachita that I remembered, and in another sense it was like I was a floating intruder surveying a foreign place, an interloper in a forbidden zone checking up on its changed, hidden secrets. If there had been students there today, if there had been faculty and staff, it would have felt like being a welcomed stranger, like how I feel when I’m walking around Renfest on a late Sunday afternoon near sunset: everything is quieting down, everyone is folding up, the parking lot is decompressing, and I’m walking around between the booths where my few Rennie friends do their business. Yeah, just like that.

But today everything was just empty. The only human noise was from the construction crews, the few stragglers walking around campus, the campus security truck tooling around, and the ever-present Arkadelphia autumn breeze knocking around the leaves. I took the occasion to walk down the hillside beneath the student center to the Ouachita River, to the river bottoms where I spent so much of my time. They’d done some work there, made a walking trail, built steps and platforms down the hillside, thinned out a lot of the trees to open up the space to the campus uphill. The pavillion is still there, and so is the picnic table where my first girlfriend and I ground into each other in the heat of early summer. The odor, the smell down there on the river bottoms, the damp soil, the volumes of still water, the smell of river rot…that smell became my friend, my elixir, my aphrodisiac. I smell it and I am at peace. And today I took it in by the lungfulls. It’s still in my soul. THAT is the Ouachita that I miss.

The people I knew there were good people; not to gloss over everything with a rose-colored sheen, but they were my friends. They were the fire that kept me warm, the spark that burned new experiences into my memories. They were there with me…ten years ago. Not today. I think that was part of what is so surreal about today’s visit, and so saddening and angering. We’ve moved on, they’ve moved on; there were no familiar faces there today to share in today’s experience. I think that’s the hardest part.

It’s heavy, these floods, these torrents of memories and emotions that’re filling my head right now. Just looking around and seeing everything has brought them forward after so many years of not being triggered. There are the big picture memories that’ve always been there, but today brought back the tiny memories, the things that’ve been taken for granted, the decorations on someone’s house on the edge of campus, the fact that the ground near the theater is covered not with grass but with clover, the angled plaques mounted on a courtyard…those memories have come back.

The side trip to Lake DeGray, where I loved going, didn’t help much with the flooding. Went to the Highway 7 beach because it was the closest of the places I used to haunt, and it had the expected late-November empty beach hauntedness. The breeze was a wind over the lake, chopping up little waves in my direction as I stood on the point looking over the lake at the waning sunset. The parking lot was empty. The water was low. And everything had a heavy, heavy poetic air. This is the sunset. I cannot go back. No more dawns. The music playing on my laptop’s jukebox affirmed it, hammered it home:

“The paths that I once tred
Have all but gone
Only embers now smoulder
Where bridges once burned
I feel alive and yet I fear
What may happen now
I know,
I can’t return
…
Can I start again?
Erase this pain
By casting doubts into the waters
Asking judgment of the sea
Though Fortune may guide the fools
I have no wish to be free
Until I am gone.”

-VNV Nation “Distant (Rubicon II)”

In the past week I’ve been ill, I’ve been hyper, I’ve been clicking through the to-do list, I’ve been awake. I even finally and officially met this girl I’ve been exchanging glances with at Mojo’s for the past 3 months. And I’ve been driving, enjoyably and alertly driving. Sightseeing. And now I’m feeling, feeling things I can’t explain without metaphors; I know the words, but I can’t put them together, can’t craft what is necessary to communicate these things. That is my state. I’m still digesting.