The pen mightier than the key board

One of my main reasons for choosing the Galaxy S as my new phone was that it came with swype as an input method. I'd tried "shape writer" on the ipod before, and was very impressed with the speed at which one could write-much faster and in a more comfortable manner than with normal phone keys, tapping a virtual keyboard, or even I reckon with a  qwerty phone keypad (though I admit I haven't actually tried that). What I wanted was something that could come as close as possible to using a computer keyboard as possible. However, now that I have been using it for a little while,i realize no phone mechanism ever will, but that swype instead offers something else. It IS fast, but really is more comparable to writing with a pen than with a keyboard, and this is the point. Writing with a pen was much slower, and this, coupled with the difficulty in erasing mistakes, meant a completely different writing style was required. The cost and 'permanence' of words meant thoughts had to be much more collected and considered before they could be put to paper.  I often wonder how I managed to write essays etc. in school without the aid of backspace, and having to laboriously form every letter. Compared with writing on a computer it seems that one's thought are continually held back-wanting to rush onto the next sentence, but the first words of the current one are still being completed!

This makes me realize that writing on a computer, while not necessitating careless, throw away and a  stream of consciousness style of writing,  does encourage it. By contrast, writing with a pen, or now swype, encourages more thoughtful and succinct prose, since the extra effort increases the need for maximum efficiency. There are of course times when a gushing of words is suitable, in story telling or more descriptive passages, which need to sweep the reader doing and envelope him or her in the narrative; but for article and in my case blog writing, I think the slower ' manual' style is optimum.  Talk is cheap, and typing in a keyboard can make writing so as well, but there is something about having to craft and carve each letter of every word, that brings home their value.

There is also something graceful about writing with swype - the motion and drift as one creates swirling patterns of meaning. In fact sometimes there is the temptation during complicated words to get carried away with the shape rather than meaning of the word- trying to form and finish it with more flourish than accuracy. Also, like with predictive sms, there are the occasional humorous or even jarring non-sequiturs when the tool throws up unintended words, like technological freudian slips, or like when someone finishes another person's sentence (it just threw up "semtex" :-) but having seriously misread where they were going with it. Ok, maybe not what you want to happen too often, but a nice little mental prod when it occasionally happens!

Posted from phone via Blogaway (so excuse any typos!)

double distraction

Maybe I'm a relic of a fading generation, that whether we achieve it or not, does however think being able to focus on one task at a time is a good thing, and that while enjoyable, the distractions of the modern age are things we need to handle carefully if we are to concentrate on anything at all.

However I have read that the 'youth' of today take multitasking to new heights, not just texting and surfing while watching tv, but even watching two programmes simultaneously with regular flicking between the channels...

So I guess it's no surprise to hear about a new startup 'Starling' whose goal is to promote a tool for 'co-viewing'. On the one hand co-viewing, whereby lots of people are watching the same thing at the same time sounds like a nice return to the old days of fixed (and hence shared) TV schedules. However the tool would provide a second internet window on the TV, to allow chatting/surfing/tweeting with others. The statement from the founder was that it explicitly wasn't a main focus for attention, but just something to catch that surplus bit of attention which he claimed we all have when watching TV. I.e. it is the ultimate distraction - something which is only meant to be just that - a distraction! Now it might seem that being able chat in parallel with a show is a nice idea - but didn't the old method of discussing after make more sense?! Maybe again I'm old fashoined, but nothing annoys me more than someone providing an alternative commentary to what I'm actually trying to watch - it's why I'm watching it in the first place!

I'm not sure what sort of shows this guy watches, but if something is so mediocre that one needs to bring one's own secondary entertainment with one, then it maybe isn't worth watching after all?!

Again fits in with the notion of the internet, for all its power, promoting thin, surface attention, without the deep post-pondering and consideration needed to properly learn things. It seems in this world view television, and everything else, is meant just to be another light stream of semi-interest, to dip into and splash about with in parallel, but not as a means to itself. A lot of partial content may add up to a full occupation, but surely this can't be good for our mental powers - not just couch potatoes, but diced and chipped potatoes as well.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/36716/Starling-unveils-co-viewing-social-TV-platform

mixed signals

Almost got knocked down at a pedestrian crossing the other day, and would have been completely my fault - set off across the road when the red man was still standing resolutely at attention. It's not even as if I wasn't watching him, but I still managed to misread the most basic and well learned set of signals in modern society - wait for the green man!

How could I have managed it?! What I realised had happened was when I pressed the button on the traffic light to summon said individual, an orange message popped up below the red man opposite. It actually said "green's coming" but the problem was, this red+orange combination is exactly what you get at Austrian traffic lights for cars, to indicate green really a second or two imminent and you can start revving up. Being more conditioned to seeing the lights from a car's perspective, this signalling combination triggered my 'start moving forward'response - and I only realised my mistake when halfway across the road and the written part sank in!

I wouldn't mind, but at the next set of lights, while I was still pondering the first incident, and my stupidity, it almost happen again. Red+orange, click, whirr, my brain revved me up to move.

Think says something slightly interesting about how we are conditioned by modern signalling to have automatic responses, and the dangers for mixing similar symbols in the wrong domains. And just show's even having the message 'green is coming' spelled out (literally) in front of me couldn't compete with the more basic colour flags I react to day in day out.

Just shows, no interface is fool (or conditioned fool) proof...

why have a cake if not to eat it?

actually always thought there was something wrong with the "have your cake and eat it" saying - for a long time thought the point of it was that the world was so ironically cruel, that if you wanted cake, then when you finally mangaed to actually 'have it' (in your possesion), some evil twist of fate would always prevent you from eating it! i.e. you can try to get the cake - but it will be useless by then!

And what would be the point of having cake if you couldn't eat the damn thing!

Eventually realised meant 'keep your cake and eat it' - makes more sense that way!

Why memory can't be googled

A modern misconception is that with the semi-infinite storage and search capabilities we now have, there is little need to remember anything. The problem with this, is to recall something, one has to know what one wants to remember, which means have to have some stored 'locally'. Ok, so maybe we could just have an index of titles, and would be able to look the details up when needed, but then the problem is - how much 'index' info is enough? And the answer i I think is, nothing is enough - and the more the better, which nullifies the original argument.... The reason is memory is rarely a simple search and recall task, but is a constant background illumination of possible related facts and ideas. If I am writing about a topic, then i can google for the interesting details, but this is just one use of memory, and the least important. Where memory comes into its own is when we are thinking about one topic, and gain inspiration or see relevance in another...

take for example something like the civil rights movement. Maybe if I just knew Martin Luther King's importance, i could find out some interesting facts when needed. But if I didn't know myself the details, then if i saw Glen Beck's rally at the washington mall, on 28th August, i might not see anything related between the two. Only if I knew where King had his rally, and which date, would the significance be revealed...

Also - like words in language, memories are more than mere meaning, but are associative. A word is subtly influenced by how it is commonly used or heard, and this colours our interpretation of how we perceive the world. Similarly with memory, if things, places, times etc. are linked, however slightly, with other things, this changes how we consider them. Memory changes the paths of our brains and this changes our minds - it is the influence of these structures on our thinking, and the resemblance of structures for different events, like Beck's rally with King's, that is irreplaceablt currently.

of course, there is the possibillity, that there will some day be a tool. However it would first of all need to have access to ALL our daily inpu data, not just what we read/watch, but what we see and hear, and how we feel about it. Some of these maybe could be captured by an ever-on recording device, but the emotional colouring? Allowing even if, with enough historical info this was possible, the second problem ], and probably the harder one, is it would need to pattern match the data constantly and pop up relevant information to us in a way our subconscious currently does. To identify the same info and provide it in a similar way is I think the hardest task, way beyond current technology. but it is in theory maybe possible, but we're a long way off yet

The basic point is memory is more than content, it is also relationships and structure, and for the moment, that can't be googled.

Thoughts on touchscreen input

Am always looking for the optimum mobile device input mechanism- and the ipod in landscape mode is the best i have at the moment. However, still can be frustratingly slow comparisoned to a proper keyboard; but then i realised that the input rate is probably comparable to my speed when actually writing with a pen, and when thought of that way, then maybe its restrictivness is not such a bad thing. After all, i often lament how typing a piece results in an impatient and often insuficiently considered torrent of words. This i felt was in contrast to the deliberation forced on one by manual writing with a pen. Well is not laborious touchscreen writing similar?

test - first post

Blah blah, blah blah blah blah.