Got some nice jewellery from a local vintage/craft show today so I am in a good mood. :neocat__w:

I've been thinking about the names we give our metaphors and what effect those have.

We have the Desktop metaphor, with files and folders.
The metaphor is of sitting at a desk doing paperwork.

AmigaOS used a workbench metaphor instead. It had all the same parts but all the names were different.
Desktop -> Workbench (also spacial file manager)
Data files -> Projects
Executables -> Tools
Folders -> Drawers
And software was built from gadgets, not widgets.

The metaphor here was of being at a workbench, building things.

I have to wonder what, if any, effect that had on people who grew up with them.

Maybe we need to be more careful with naming things?

Looks into newer Amiga software
Claude, fucking Claude everywhere.

Today was the first day I ever got a compliment on my outfit from a stranger \o/

The Reasoned Schemer

What, like a Kanren with Datalog syntax?

I've been thinking that maybe it's time for a FidoNet & BBS revival.

Or maybe I just need to sleep.

Mr. @timbrown has made his classic A Book Apart book a free PDF download.

https://tbrown.org/notes/2024/10/26/flexible-typesetting/

Ya know, speaking of class acts.

So, I guess I now need to add a "don't edit my speaker shot photos with AI without my consent and running the result by me before publishing it first" addition to my speaker conditions?

https://xcancel.com/elizlaraki/status/1846252781851890026

She's my new hero.

Talking about dealing with people who always say no the first time:

(I love her)

On getting stuff done - the context is talking about young people swanning in with computers, copying files, and making things better without permission.

Oh nice. She was about to go into talking about planning good infrastructure for the upcoming computer information networks - and decided to make an analogy as to how the car boom lead to the US forgetting about other transportation, like rail.

Yep yep yep.

🕵️ Still using Chrome?

How do you feel about any site being able to call `document.browsingTopics()`to learn all about you?

https://developers.google.com/privacy-sandbox/private-advertising/topics/web/topic-classification

is it possible to be physically in love with a blog, asking for a friend

https://modem.io/blog/scrollbars/

What can you learn by asking users to draw an interface from memory? A lot actually!
It helps you assess the learnability of an interface, understand user’s mental models (what do people draw first, what do they draw larger aka more important, what words do they use to describe things) and identify potential usability issues.

Simple recall testing for B2B UX (11min) By Olesia Vdovenko https://uxdesign.cc/simple-recall-testing-for-b2b-ux-134e18330da9

"Google, Amazon, and Microsoft control seventy-five percent of the cloud computing market. Meta and Google own half of the fiber optic cables supplying internet services across continents."

…

"So what did GAMM do? They convinced us that our notetaking apps require an internet connection and forty thousand dollar GPUs located on a server three hundred miles away."

https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/any-technology-indistinguishable-from-magic-is-hiding-something/

Looking for a monospaced pixel font with a lo-fi technical vibe, serving old school interfaces? Meet Departure Mono. I love it soooo much!

https://departuremono.com/

By Helena Zhang (https://www.helenazhang.com/)

Our addiction to complicated toolchains and overbuilt frameworks is out of control.

https://alistapart.com/article/cult-of-the-complex/

On Monday, the Scottish NHS are going to revoke the right of trans people in Scotland to self-refer to their gender identity service. They will have to convince a GP to refer them.

No clinical reason has been given. No trans people have apparently been consulted. We only know because this information was leaked ahead of time.

If you’re thinking of a referral to a Scottish GIC, do so TODAY.

https://x.com/PhilosophyTube/status/1821598135161917846