First Do No Harm: Jef Raskin Dies at 61
Jef viewed good design as a moral duty, holding interface designers to the same ethical standards as surgeons. Alluding to Isaac Asimov's first law of robotics, one of Jef's mantras was that "any system shall not harm your content or, through inaction, allow your content to come to harm."
Primum no nocere, or "first do no harm," is a phrase attributed to Hippocrates who lived in Greece during the 5th century B.C.E. He was a philosopher of the body and one of the earliest practitioners of rational medicine. He believed in placing the welfare of the patient above all else.
Raskin recognized that interaction and UI designers have a moral responsibility to the user For this, Raskin set himself apart.
He was a founder of Apple Computing, and led the development of the Macintosh project. Perhaps his best is yet to come: a zooming UI he named Archy, which Raskin nearly completed before he died on Saturday.
A Turing Machine from a Toy Train
A toy train that can calculateA couple of Austrian artist/engineers have created a "Turing Train"--a toy train that can calculate anything that is able to be calculated, at least theoretically speaking. I was reminded of the tic-tac-toe device (not a Turing machine, but "hard-wired" to play tic-tac-toe) that Hillis built when he was a kid.
I have only skimmed through the "schematics" section. I see that the inputs are made on a little row of buttons (these are like the symbols on the tape), and I think the outputs are the lamps visible in the photos. Would anyone like to explain in more detail how this works? I'll give extra credit to the first who posts a detailed exposition.
Via Andrew Otwell at
www.heyotwell.com/blogSee also:
Wikipedia: Turing Machine
Build a Turing Machine from Toilet Paper
YOUR HOMEWORK (complete before class on Thursday)
To build a Turing machine from toilet paper and post-its and a die (as in dice) you'll want to know something about the man and his ideas, and you'll want to know how a Turing machine works.
1. Browse
A Short Biography of Alan Turingand learn more about this extraordinary mind
2. Visit the
Turing Machine Lab. Launch the "xTuring Machine" and step through the first program (in the pulldown) "Change01toXY." Can you figure out what's happening? What is controlling the changes on the toilet paper / tape? Then to see how "state" can work, step through the second program "FindDoubleX." Why is the state change needed there?
Some Notes on TuringAlan Turing is known these days as a mathematician, philosopher, and the founder of computer science. Turing's life and work crossed many boundaries: physics, mathematics, logic, philosophy, homosexuality, war, and cryptology. His cryptological smarts helped to decode the Nazi U-boat communications during WWII, and helped to turn the tide of the war. He was even a world-class runner--his time in the marathon was only 11 minutes off the Olympic time that year. After being prosecuted for alleged crimes that related to his homosexuality, he committed suicide by taking a bite of an poison-laced apple.
Some have said that this apple with a bite missing was adopted by Apple Computers as its name and logo. David informs us that this is a rumor, and that the actual origin of Apple's apple is Newton--not Turing.
We'll be studying (briefly) the Turing machine in our next class. It's a conceptual machine that Alan conceived of in 1936, when he was only 24. He never built a "Turing machine" but he posited that one could be built. From the
Turing.co.uk site:
"His work introduced a concept of immense practical significance: the idea of the Universal Turing Machine. [...] The work of interpreting the instructions and carrying them out is itself a mechanical process, and so can itself be embodied in a particular Turing machine, namely the Universal Turing machine. A Universal Turing machine can be made do what any other particular Turing machine would do, by supplying it with the standard form describing that Turing machine. One machine, for all possible tasks."
Sound familiar? One machine, for all possible tasks? Some, such as Donald Norman (whom we'll hear from later in the course) have pointed out that many usability issues spring from one machine trying to be "everything"--canvas, instrument, darkroom, game console, communication tool, etc. As computing power and memory become ever-less precious, we may benefit from creating specialized machines, with the hardware and user interfaces dedicated to a single task.
A Machine for Adding & Subtracting
From the Vintage Calculator's Web Museum:
This instrument, which shows the latest development of the Troncet type of arithmograph, was placed on the market in August 1920, and 100,000 examples were sold within a year. It is attractively designed on mass production lines
I've used an addiator, and now that I see the image I recall that you input the first number with a stylus, then input the second "on top of" the first number. The resulting sum is displayed at the top. On the model I used (slightly different from this one) when you had to carry a digit over, there was a little red flag that appeared, to remind you to carry the digit (which had to be added manually)
These adding devices and similar were used during the 1950's and 1960's, and the specialized versions (for various units of measurement) were used until the 1980's. Not so long ago, really.
To imagine a Turing Machine, think of an addiator, but instead of being designed to add, it's a universal machine, one that can perform any sort of calculation that you can describe, or almost any sort.
From Ariane: RGB vs. MYC
Ariane has sent us a note (see below) and a
presentation that relates
to the RGB color space, and explains why RGB is additive--the more you
add Red, Green, and Blue together, the closer to white the eye
perceives them. Cross your fingers that the attachment will survive
this method of posting (
if it doesn't, I'll upload the presentation
later and place a link Done!).
Added note--23 Feb:
So I think I have the first slide in my head--the Red, Green, and Blue cones in the eye are similar to the R, G, and B pixels that a computer display uses, and the more R, G, and B you emit on the screen, the closer to white the eye perceives it ... and I understand the way that Cyan, Magenta, Yellow inks (reflective, not emissive) combine to form black (from experiments with finger paint). But the second slide in the presentation is a bit opaque to me. Pun intended. Can anyone elucidate?
Begin note from Ariane:
Prof. Smagula
I'm sorry this is a little late after our discussion of colors, but I
just got a chance to format it. I tried to send it to the class, but
the list serv shot it back to me. This is the explanation of why
computer monitors and TVs use red, blue, and green, and printers use
yellow, magenta, and cyan.
-ariane
Links to Alan Kay Video We Watched in Class
Alan Kay: "Doing with Images Makes Symbols" Part I"Doing with Images Makes Symbols" Part II both 1987, from the Internet Archive.
Here's the review I posted on the Internet Archive:
"Speaking of a system developed in the 1970's Alan Kay says: "For the first time I felt like I was touching the information structures." You get the sense watching this video that you're connecting with the people who invented all of the various input devices, metaphors, UI widgets, interaction designs, that together make what we call a personal computer. Kay ends his review of UI's from the 60's and 70's with a discussion of how computers are changing from trains (mainframes) to cars (PC) to media. Very insightful and relevant stuff, here. Amazing that in some ways we have not come very far at all."
Alan Kay was winner of the 2003
Turing Prize. One can see why. In the second part, Kay discusses how to learn to play tennis--by doing, not thinking--and the implications of this for designing user interfaces that
don't make the user think. I recommend both parts I & II highly. To see and hear Douglas Englebart select that first hyperlink--to actually hear that first mouse click and the strumming of the 5-prong keyboard, the electrical interference creating ambient electronic noise--it is strange and wonderful stuff. The inspiration that Kay took from observing children using first-generation personal computers made me admire Kay and his creativity, his values. All this human invention brought smiles to my face, and I'm still smiling.
Recent Winners of the Association of Computing Machines "Turing Award" (a sort of "Nobel Prize" for computing):
1997:
Douglas Englebart2003:
Alan Kay In his acceptance speach: "[...]This unbelievably beautiful, new art form [...] hasn't even started yet."
New Link to Hawkinson's "Ghostly Chair"
Hawkinson's Ghostly Chair (article from NYT) no registration needed. Ever notice that you never find articles from the New York Times when you search using Google? Does this mean that the NYT's position as "news source of record" is imperiled? It's certainly possible. It's up to the the Times to figure out a way to enable people to find and refer to content in the archive, in a way that balances the public's need for access and the business's need to generate revenue. But how will the Times achieve this and still be able to charge information services such as Lexis-Nexis $20 million a year for access to the same information?
The link above comes via the "
New York Times Link Generator".
Read more about this link-generating tool in Wired:
"Searching for the New York Times""
"How can the mighty New York Times, which considers itself America's paper of record, be the paper of record in cyberspace when its articles barely show up on Google?"
See also:
Phillip's entry with more links to Hawkinson's work
Douglas Englebart demonstrating mouse & pointer
After a discussion about the last chapter in Tufte, "Narratives of Space and Time," we'll be watching an excerpt of a 1960 demonstration by Douglas Englebart. Englebart invented the mouse and pointer, was first to implement hypertext (you'll see the first hyperlink ever clicked tonight!), and was behind several other UI and interaction design innovations.
40 Years later, in 2001 Englebart was deposed by an Austin, Texas law firm in relation to a suit brought by British Telecom against Prodigy Communications (RIP). BT was claiming to have patented the hyperlink, and wanted Prodigy to pay for the "license" to use hyperlinks. Englebart was able to point to the video we'll watch tonight to prove that there was "prior art" as they say in the legal world, and the he, not BT was the first.
In Englebart's day the computer was not personal it was a central, shared resource "like a railroad," as Alan Kay says. It took people like Englebart and Alan Kay to turn the computer from a "railroad" into a personal and social medium where people can interact with each other, collaborate. By developing innovative graphical interface concepts Englebart, Kay, and Ivan Sutherland turned the computer into a tool that could be used to design, imagine, and even augment our intellect. Take a look at the other images on Flickr (click the photo) for other UI and interaction design examples from the 60's.
A "3-D" perspective machine...
A chair made from a chair (NYT) registration neeededA chair made from a chair (NYT) no registration. Via the "
New York Times Link Generator".
In Tim Hawkinson's "Shrink," a ghostly chair floats beside a real one. The ghost is made from tiny core samples of the chair held aloft by threads attached to the points from which the samples came.
File under art and science. Hawkinson uses strings that join together to form a something like a vanishing point.
Sonification--Information Design for the Ear
Sonification of Datafrom BBC
"The images have three dimensions and I had to find a way of reading them myself," Mr Wong told the BBC News website.
"For the sake of my own study - and for the sake of blind scientists generally - I felt it would be good to develop software that could help us to read colour images."
This article describes the efforts to "translate" a 3-Dimensional data into sound that can be analyzed by ear.
More Connections between Science and Art
Precision in Art, Beauty in TechnologyMalina writes: "[..] I realized that designing a chip layout is quite a work of art. Efficiency in time and area is important as well as appeal to the eye. A finished project looks like parallel and perpendicular lines and symetrical objects..."
Algorithms, too have a beauty--logical elegance is analogous in some ways to visual elegance.
David and a Guest Using the Perspective Machine
While our guest from UT's Computer Science Dept. holds the string (the machine's "line of sight") David uses a pencil to record the X and Y position of the point where the line of sight crosses the plane of the canvas. By placing a dot at that point, David markes the spot where the 3-D subject is projected onto the 2-D canvas.
After you record a lot of spots, you can "connect the dots" and fill in the drawing.
Our materials:
A large C-clamp
A wooden stretcher frame
String
Paper
A stiff canvas
Tape
Pins
Soft-lead pencils
Visualizing Information: Baby Names
Baby Names from 1900-2003 VisualizationView the rates of change in baby name usage over time. Ever wondered how mass media might influence the names we use? This display might help.
For example: Type in "Alexis." From 1900-1980 Alexis is flat, flat, flat. Suddenly in the 80's Alexis takes off. Hmmm… Alexis was the name of an anti-heroine on the popular
"Dallas" "Dynasty" TV series. I'll bet that if you talked to the parents who named their daughters Alexis, most of them would say "We didn't namer our daughter after any TV Show character!" But surely the name was "in the air" as a result of the popular series.
Via Andrew Switzky.
Art and Science
National Public Radio has a series titled Where Science Meets Art that features artists and scientists talking about their work.
As the name of the NPR series implies, these days we tend to think of science and art as separate fields of study. But the perspective machine we built in class is a reminder that art and science have common roots: close readings of nature.
Whether the approach to creating images is mathematical, mechanical (such as our string-and-frame device), optical (mirror- and lens-projections), chemical (photography), or digital, all these techniques enable artists and scientists alike to make readings of the natural world.
But is there such a thing as a "true" or "natural" or "realistic" reading? Do photographs depict the world "truly"?
Class Project: Build a Perspective Machine
View full-size image (new window)
From Durer's Underweysung der Messung (Instruction in Measurement) published in 1527, comes this woodcut of a perspective machine. Albrecht Durer was a painter, draughtsman, and engraver. Image via Octavo Editions.
Your assignment: on your blogs, please write some notes on how you imagine the machine
on the right works (image also reproduced in the Ann Landi article in the course packet). How would one use it? What's the first step, second, third?
A. What are the affordances of this perspective technology? Affordances are the various uses of the device/technology. "A sturdy table affords writing as well as sitting," for example.
B. What are the constraints of this technology? How does it compare to the mirror- and lens-based techniques we learned about last week?
More information
about Albrecht Durer here and
about the perspective machine we'll build.
A Butterflydom of Ballots
Phillip's Analysis of the Butterfly Ballot
"The ballot was designed by a Democrat and it was not the first time that the ballot design caused votes to be thrown out due to hanging chads..."
Phillip's ballot
repositioned the labels so they aligned with the relevant punch-holes. Many of you also repositioned the labels, or used a tinted "group box" behind the label and punchhole. David actually
color-coded the punch holes themselves to correspond with the party's color.
I'm happy to say you were all able to improve greatly on this deeply dissatisfying ballot design. However, my vote is for sending the butterfly ballot to its final resting place in the
User Interface Hall of Shame.
Optics and Art: David Hockney and His Theory
Susan Sontag: "If David Hockney's thesis is correct, it would be a bit like finding out that all the great lovers of history have been using Viagra."
What is this theory? And who is this David Hockney?
Video of Hockney discussing his art
"We don't all see the same thing, we don't all hear the same thing, either. That's what artists tell us. Well, that's what I keep trying to do, anyway." --David Hockney
Hockney's photo-collages call attention to the human tendency toward selective perception. We focus on parts and pieces, we hear patterns in the iPod's random shuffle, and our mind "half creates what the eye perceives." Recall the example of the inscribed rock in Tufte's Envisioning Information: what each era saw in the rock revealed more about the perceiver than the inscriptions.
Art & Optics
New theories regarding opticality in western painting View examples of some of the paintings and drawings that are under discussion, see interactive demonstrations, and read papers first delivered at a 2001 NYU conference organized by Lawrence Wechsler on the topic.
Article from Packet
New Yorker:
The Looking Glass 31 Jan 2000, by Lawrence Wechsler.
"I bought the [Ingres] catalogue, brought it back here to L.A., studied it some more, [...]blew up some of the drawings on the copier over there, and one morning, studying the blowups, I found myself thinking, Wait, I've seen that line before. Where have I seen that line? And suddenly I realized, That's Andy Warhol's line."
Hockney proposes that as early as 1420, European artists began using optical techniques such as the camera obscura and convex mirror projections to establish an increasingly "photographic" way of seeing and painting.
Weekly Theme #2: What do you predict?
This week's theme is "Predictions." I'd like you to envision how people will find, evaluate, visualize, and manipulate information in the future. "Information" could be interpreted here as communications from other people or systems ("messages"), or stored information (think of a library). To get you started, below are a few predictions made in the early 90's by various thinkers, writers, and technologists.
"The value of information about information can be greater than the value of the information itself. - Nicholas Negroponte, 1994"
Much care has to be taken with design and education in order for the change to be positive. We don't have natural defenses against fat, sugar, salt, alcohol, alkaloids - or media. - Alan Kay, 1994
We techies should be more honest about what computers can do and what they cannot do, or else we are setting ourselves up for a big pie in the face. - Clifford Stoll, 1995
Via the Elon University /Pew Survey site. Visit the Pew / Elon
Imagining the Internet site where you can search and browse a database of thousands of predictions dating from the 90's. How many of them have come true? Why is it so hard to predict technological change?
Extra credit: take the Pew / Elon Survey and
record your prediction for posterity.
Visualizing Information, an Introduction
Visual Thesaurus by ThinkMap
A way to see the relationships between words.
The Market Map by Smartmoney.com
A treemap visualization of 600 commonly traded stocks.
The VizServer by Inxight.
See the online demos in lower right of page.
Anemone by Ben Fry.
An organic visualization of a dynamic information source.
Enjoy!
