Category: English Articles

Future Of Text Symposium /Call for Sponsors

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The Future of Text Symposium is going to happen again in London on Nov 6, 2014. I was lucky to attend, and I guess I won’t miss FoT14 this year. Frode Hegland has again invited a superbe crowd to share and discuss insights on text and literature and culture. A few impressions from last year_


Browse my photo set on FoT13 and follow the links to watch the videos.

This is also a call for sponsors. If you consider to support The Future of Text Symposium IV – like uber and starbucks already do – please get in touch with Frode or myself.

4 basic principles for communities

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Esther Dyson writes in “Release 2.1, page 49″:

Here are a few basic principles for communities, based on my own experience both on- and offline:

  • Each participant should be clear about what he is giving and what he hopes to get. Overall, those desires should mesh, although they may well be different for each individual. 
  • There should be a way of determining who is in the community and who is outside it. Otherwise the community is meaningless. 
  • Community members should feel that they have invested in the community, and that therefore it is tough for them to leave. The ultimate punishment in a strong community is banishment, expulsion, excommunication, excile. … All those words signify the terror of being cast out of the community.
  • The community’s rules should be clear, and there should be recourse if they are broken.

Communities fail when these principles are not observed: for example [the] dance club where people are screened in or out by the bouncer may or may not be a valid community, depending on how well the bouncer knows the crowd and whether they know one another. On the other hand, a good bartender can create a wonderful community, as illustrated […] by Rick in the movie Casablanca.

watercolor serendipity

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Me, exploring a new watercolor app for iPad. Wondering about the confusing icon of a whale with an umbrella. It doesn’t resonate with me because it does not look like a watercolor image at all. But it turns out that this is meant to be a metaphor for a watercolor artist’s toolbox.
Then serendipity strikes. While I was looking for colorful sample photos to be converted with the app, I took a photo from the TV screen – voilá – Juliette Binoche’s painting tin box at Les Amants du Pont-Neuf done with Waterlogue.

Ivan Sutherland on Research and Fun

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The Computer History Museum had invited Ivan Sutherland to talk about Research and Fun for an evening in 2005. I was electrified to listen to his words when the recording was first published on research.sun.com – you know, we both worked at Sun those days. I even did a partial transcript of a key section where he offers the essence of what it takes being a good researcher, excerpt of the excerpt:

…if you would be a researcher it seams to me that you’d best search your soul first to find out what it is you like to do. … what ever it is make sure that you pick something to work on that you like, that you think is fun. Because if it isn’t fun you aren’t going to be very good at it. [more]

When Sun went down – this video went away. How odd that a museum depends on the fortune of a single company to preserve its assets. Hence this video was off-line for a couple of years until I offered to upload my backup version earlier this year. The Computer History Museum rejected my idea, but assured me to upload the video to the official CHM channel on YouTube. So thanks a lot to Sara Lott for republishing the talk!

Odysseys in Technology: Research and Fun, lecture by Ivan Sutherland on YouTube

Have fun! (And drop me a line when YouTube is switched off)

Easter Island Rock’n’Roll

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Storytelling is quite en vogue. In fact telling stories is part of the human nature. Things get weird if the story is more convincing than the truth. Word of mouth spreads like wild fire to turn into facts? Is it called urban legends? Viral marketing?
For instance, do you know what happened on Easter Island? Do you know why all the trees are chopped, almost all insular are dead, and many of the famous moai statures are overthrown? These are the ingredients to make up a convincing story of a collapsing culture. Furthermore, it is warning for human kind to be careful with the limited resources on our planet.

For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. – Henry Louis Mencken

Science can help to discover the truth once conducted with an honest and open minded attitude. Therefore I was impressed by listening to a talk by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo at the LongNow Seminars. There exists an alternative explanation for toppled statures. And most impressive and surprising, Hunt and Lipo offer a solution how to move a moai with a weight of several tons across the island. Let’s rock’n’roll!
A shorter version of the talk has been recorded by the National Geographic – check minute 16 to see a moai dancing:

Is there another lesson in this story than potential collapse of civilizations? For me it’s this: Stay alert. Look for the facts. And keep history separated from its interpretation.
Enjoy Easter!

// top photo cc by Olivier iko

à propos

White on White

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Brian Eno and Danny Hillis talk about their white period.

Here is my twist on the subject:



It dawned on me that 256 times 256 pixel at 8 bit gif color range all set to white – represent the total random access memory of my first computer, the Apple //e, with 64KB RAM – stunning!
You can also view it on deviantART

What about this white on white?



It is the Mandelbrot set rendered by frax at 2048 x 1536 pixels with the set set to white. It is also available on deviantART.

[Update] Albertina 2016: White on White


Malevich at Albertina, Vienna, 2016

à propros

Window Cooling at Xerox Star

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// reblogged via interaction-design.org on fb So this morning I was curious about the origin of what is often referred to as the hamburger icon. Spent a few minutes digging around and found this video from the Xerox Star. Turns out that Norm Cox is who designed the interface for this system. I emailed Norm and asked who designed the hamburger icon? Here’s his response:

You’ve done your homework and found the right guy. I designed that symbol many years ago as a "container" for contextual menu choices. It would be somewhat equivalent to the context menu we use today when clicking over objects with the right mouse button. Its graphic design was meant to be very "road sign" simple, functionally memorable, and mimic the look of the resulting displayed menu list. With so few pixels to work with, it had to be very distinct, yet simple. I think we only had 16×16 pixels to render the image. (or possibly 13×13… can’t remember exactly). Interesting inside joke… we used to tell potential users that the image was an "air vent" to keep the window cool. It usually got a chuckle, and made the mark much more memorable. It’s been nice to see that so many of our designs from those early pioneering years have stood the test of time and become ubiquitous symbols in our UI’s. Feel free to share the short story. I have many more design related stories from my days at Xerox PARC during the birth of graphical UI’s, and subsequent 30+ years consulting. I think it’s important to share the past with designers today to help them understand the philosophies, constraints, considerations and inspirations that got us to where we are today. I only ask for proper attribution when you post something from me. (I like people to know that they can get in touch with me for more design tales!) Kind regards Norm

all-the-widgets from Brad Myers on Vimeo.

Deeper Cosmology – Deeper Documents

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Ted Nelson 2013 - by Frode Hegland, animated by Matthias Mueller-Prove

This is not my planet. And this is not my conference.

– Ted Nelson’s opening words at ACM Hypertext 2001. Once in a while I find it very refreshing to remind myself on potential alternatives and fundamental considerations about the state of technology with respect to the web and our knowledge management tools as such. An ever-trusted source on this is Ted Nelson (bibliography and videos).
More quotes from the talk:

  • I think of the world wide web and XML and cascading style sheets is the ultimate triumph of the typesetter over the author.
  • three fundamental problems today:
    1. hierarchical file structures
    2. simulation of paper
    3. the application prison
  • Software is a branch of movie making.
  • The question is about starting over.

A friend who has attended the conference gave me a CD with the talk. Eventually, I decided to upload the recording to vimeo. Please enjoy:


Ted Nelson at ACM Hypertext 2001 from mprove.

Photo: Ted Nelson 2013 – by Frode Hegland, animated by myself

Starfire

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The second video – which I helped to put into the public space – is also from the vision’n’concept department: Starfire by Sun Microsystems 1994.

At CHI ’98 I’ve attended a presentation by Frank Ludolph on Apple Lisa. Frank had also booth duty at the conference where he spread a couple of VHS tapes of Starfire. What marvelous concepts! Multitouch, voice UI, wall-size displays, tablets with motion and orientation sensors, telepresence for video conferences, among many more…
Years later – in 2005 – I asked Tog for a digital copy. Of course he had one – but no permission for sharing. By chance I was working for Sun at the time and got approval from Sun’s VP Juan Carlos Soto to release the video. So please enjoy_

Starfire Director’s Cut, Sun 1994

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