disobey.com

An old DON NORMAN INTERVIEW, the noted UI/CHI/SIGIA (ugh!) expert who wrote The Design of Everyday Things, and worked at Apple. Some decent snippets:

I never look back at the stuff I've done. I look forward to where I'm going. This actually makes it hard for me to give talks because I get invited to speak about ideas of mine that may be five even ten years old. That's dull. If I don't do a dramatically new thing each year and learn a new topic, then I'll stagnate. It's part of my philosophy of life, to always push off in different directions.

There are no "dumb decisions." Everybody has a problem to solve. What makes for bad design is trying to solve problems in isolation, so that one particular force, like time or market or compatibility or usabilility, dominates.

But how on earth do we make smooth, working prototypes before we've even thought through the ideas? Of course, the only way is to actually try new ideas out, that's when we find out if we want them. I have a feeling that as fast as the prototyping tools are developed our needs for them will grow even faster. So maybe we'll always be complaining about the lack of tools.

As I've said before, I believe our machines have just become too complex. When one machine does everything, it in some sense does nothing especially well, although its complexity increases. My Swiss Army knife is an example: It is very valuable because it does so many things, but it does none of the single things as well as a specialized knife or a screwdriver or a scissors. My Swiss Army knife also has so many tools I don't think I ever open the correct one first. Whenever I try to get the knife, I always get the nail file and whenever try to get the scissors, I get the awl, etc. It's not a big deal but it's only about six parts. Imagine a computer with hundreds or thousands of "parts." I think the correct solution is to create devices that fit the needs of people better, so that the device "looks like" the task.

A BETTER PRINTABLE PAGE starts out with a chuckle:

The only people who don't print Web sites are those without printers. Even Mormons print Web sites. But it is such a bother: So much of what makes the Web the Web

A decent Flash experiment, CONSEQUENCES OF THOUGHT:

In an exploration of visual thought, this site was created to expore the world of communication and the possibilities that could have otherwise been forgotten. This work is produced on the assumption of finding more. It is merely a placeholder for further inquiry.

Welp, I finally finished the GFDL version of FREE AS IN FREEDOM (the "no frills" version). I'll add it to my book list (maintained since 1992), and move on to the other forty or so bookmarks still sitting in my root folder. Boy oh boy. I have far too many things to read. I haven't even opened AMPHETADESK for a week or so. Stupid IRC (yeah! blame the SWHACK crowd, whooo!).

I've got far too many things to read and write. One of them is FREE AS IN FREEDOM: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software, which has been released under the GFDL. Sigh. Where am I going to find all this damn time? See, this is why I want cloning. Not for body parts, not for science, not to relive dreams of early scifi lust - just so I can get more work done. That's bad, right?

Man. My life hasn't been so good lately.

Ok. You've got a cat, and a cat door, so said feline can go inside and outside at will. Yet finicky kitty witty likes to bring home small animals and lets them run around the house, playing with them before her tasty meal. Naturally, this is probably a bit disturbing to watch ("can you smell the feaaar?!"). What do you do? Here's what one geek did:

This is what the camera sees normally. And this is what it sees when Flo sticks her head in from the street. The image is captured as soon as the center of the picture becomes dark. At this point our software analyses the image to determine if Flo is carrying anything in her mouth. This is how it looks if she does. The decision whether to unlatch the door has to be made within about a second - this is how long it typically takes Flo to reach the cat door from this position in front of the light.

A decent analysis was released at the new Boxes and Arrows recently concerning the growth of three booksellers (more in the article):

All three sites use very long screens to display content on their homepages. All three sites evolved to use three-column layouts. Amazon has consistently placed more links above the fold. All sites eventually included navigation targeted at specific audiences.

I've been reading B3TA for a few weeks now. I must say, not a day goes by when I don't have a whimsical in-joke smile cross my face. Good stuff.

Bah. Just got back from the dentist. I have a grossly enlarged mouth, a racketeering headache, and I can't take any aspirin because I haven't had any food. I can't take any food because I have to babysit my jibber jabber. And all I want right now is some Dunkin Donut's coffee. I can't believe how much of a craving I've had for that junk lately. Man.