I’m convinced there are a class of engineers that hate users and design for themselves instead.
I hate grep. I always have. I imagine it is in some way responsible for most of the misery in this world.
It occurs to me how fascinating I find all of the language tidbits that accrue around the tools we like using. Handles and taglines and slang, oh my! Just all of it: the names of obscure command line utilities, code comments, server names, API in-jokes, boot messages, slogans > tldr.txt
Especially satisfying is the passage starting at 3:48 or so. She holds a very long note over what I can only describe as intense humming. :-) Never fails to straighten my spine.
Just like every new teenager thinks they invented sex, every new programmer thinks they can create a free standing intelligence comparable to humans. #gentlelaughter
Hey, #chatbot dummies, here’s some free historical training material.
Check the record on Eliza, the Eliza effect, and J. Weizenbaum.
“I had not realized … that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” — J. Weizenbaum
I love that. He stopped, listened, gently suggested not being asshats, stopped, listened again, grinned, and walked off. Get flipped!
Picture This
Okay, so I hope the basic idea is clear. This imaginary device simply brute-force generates every possible image for the resolution and colors we specified. It just keeps spitting out images, you see; I imagine them in a sort of slide show carousel. We are going to be dealing with a very large number here in a minute—but not to worry, it isn’t infinity, you won’t need any special equipment—and we’re not going to get all “mathy” or anything either.
Stairs erase up and down whereas ropes and slides insist on them. Too many ropes and slides in public software today. Don’t try to decide beforehand where users want to be; make it possible for users to get to where they want to get to in plainly reliable ways, then invite them for a climb or a plunge.
And no, I’m not ‘anti-elevator’…ach…this metaphor is deteriorating rapidly in earths' atmosphere…