Sunday, June 22, 2003

Rehumanizing the System. Yeah, I don't think it's a word either.  But I needed one that would say, "hey, there was (I think) a time once, where people cared about fairness, ethics, and their fellow man, and I would like that again".  So rehumanize it is. What do we need to rehumanize?  Everything.  But let's start with a short list: Corporate Governance Tax Codes Network Security The Legal System You'll note that the things on the list are all complex systems.  So here is my thesis: Complex systems cannot be secured or regulated.  Business goons in the late 90s and onward specialized in contorting the system to produce apparent results that had nothing to do with reality.  From a regulatory standpoint, they had often done nothing wrong (if you think the Enrons of the world are the extent of the problem, keep in mind that 90% of the iceberg is under water), but from an ethical standpoint, it's another story.  Just because something isn't illegal doesn't make it right. That's schoolyard basic ethics, and it's something that we, as a society, are just letting go of.  Tax codes are incredibly complex -- the result?  Sufficiently rich members of society don't pay a thing in tax (or pay minimally), and the little guy gets screwed.  The IRS comes down hard on those who aren't able to defend themselves. Network security is tasked thanklessly with the protection of systems of ever more complexity and ever more questionable reliability.  Clever hackers know that complexity is their friend -- the more crap that's installed on a system, the higher the probability that system can be broken into.  Finally, the legal system is just absolutely out of control.  Let's focus down on one thing -- tort law (everybody's favorite).  I see the linkage that exists between corporate malfeasance (if it's not explicitly illegal then it's ok) and the ridiculous state of liability (if you didn't specifically warn me about something, my personal responsibility ends).  So there's a coupling between all of this -- that the systems that make up our everyday lives are too complex, and need to be pulled back in somehow.  They need to be better designed.  It needs to be possible for a human to understand them again, and fair enough that humans don't mind participating.  In short, they need to be rehumanized. 11:18:19 PM

Piccolo Rocks. Had a great time tonight building some cool stuff with Piccolo.  Yes, this is my substitute for a social life, at least for tonight.  Once you get your head around how Piccolo works, you start sketching...a lot.  Then you try to make those things real.  The cool thing is, you lay out the general shape of what you want, and then with about two calls, you can do basic animation and transparency effects.  There's a whole new world of UI out there, away from the crapperies of Swing and Windows...I never liked that stuff.  It's ugly, too hard to lay out, provides very little in the way of focus+context, and is just generally a huge pain in the ass.  Plus the tools suck. Tonight my UI design tool was a sketchpad.  All I did was couple Piccolo with a little high school geometry, and I have a clock setter that I truly like.  The clock setter has these behaviors: Clicking a time node smoothly expands into a clock face, with twelve hour circles and am/pm boxes.  It is animated on the expand, and through transparency. Hovering over any hour circle or am/pm lights that up. Clicking on an hour sets the time to that hour, and also produces four more circles -- :00, :15, :30, :45.  Clicking on one of those produces 15 circles down to the minute. Clicking off the structure folds the whole thing away. After futzing around with umpteen stupid clock setting spin boxes and being driven nuts by them for a decade, it's amazing to see what a single night's worth of engineering on Piccolo can do. Next I plan to play with transparency on a global scale -- damping down my entire UI while "modal" stuff, like my clock setter, is active.  1:36:41 AM