Windows Vista and Dumb Machines

I don’t really want to harp on Vista but I’ve been working with it a little over the last week and am not enjoying the “easy of use.” For people unused to operating systems or basic design functionality since Windows 98, Vista will not make life easier. My first problem is with the desktop.

The Windows machine doesn’t seem to know what it wants: is it Vista or Google who’s running the show on the computer deck. In one instance, while working with desktop gadgets, I couldn’t tell whether Google gadgets or Windows gadgets were different or the same. I know the answer, but Vista apparently didn’t, which I found odd. This particular computer is for my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law hasn’t used a machine since about 2001. The question of what should be on the desktop shouldn’t be so complicated and one shouldn’t need a manual, CD, or help for this. The question for the desktop may not be light or heavy, but rather another kind of question that an OS may ask: “Are you new to this or are you pretty up on things? Let me help you get started.”

Mesa Dynamics’ converter is fine. But for a novice user, what is running on the desktop and why should be fairly straightforward. On a startup, Vista sidebar tanked and voiced an error. A computer error is a major interruption–still. I couldn’t figure out why the error occured. On the desktop, gadgets can be a major gain. Feeds can inform employees of an organization’s business and news. They provide a way for people to enter the conversation. If my students all had Vista, we could all share our forum posts and courses could be engaged from the deck.

In the future, perhaps computers will know who’s in the room. I can see this possibility clearer now. In the future, a smoke detector might figure the difference between a serious fire and a dirty oven, too.

I know what Wally would say about all this.

Wally Rorschach and Muddy Socks

Wally Rorschach has been on my mind a lot. A related subject came up in the fiction course yesterday. It has a lot to do with my smoking habit, which I’ve gotten away from. The torture continues and continues but it makes sense. I’ve had a few smokes in the last month but have basically given up the habit. It feels good, my lungs feel cavernous, and my energy level–with some strange alterations in brain chemistry–is up. But cold turkey is still torture.

But what if you’re seventy some-odd years of age? Wally isn’t. He’s in his 60s; he’s lost his wife; and he’s basically tired of his adult children, who’d rather worry about his problems rather than about their own. He’d quit smoking years ago, but has decided to take up the habit again. Why not? What can his children argue?

A women is accosted by her own children; she’s 80, tired, sick, and about to be hooked into a nursing home.

“Mother, you’ve never used that kind of language before.”

“I’m taking up cussing,” the woman says. “I’m giving you cussing for Christmas, Shitforbbrains.”

She understands her gardens; rolls artery marbles with her fingers in sleep; she remembers Arlington; she can still smell her husbands homecoming(1944). She’s lucky that she has a batterypowered wheelchair. She decides to take off in that chair and head down the highway. Where will she go? Why not depart? And what about that couple she meets at a rest stop? A man and a women who smile a lot and offer to strap her and her cart to the top of their van.

“For the wind,” the woman says.

“I remember the wind,” the old woman says.

Wally wont know what to make of this image. But it will be something he can follow. Why not?

“Things with wheels,” he says.

“Right answer,” says Swellman. “But what’s the difference between running away and running into?”

“Maybe I can show you,” Wally says. The knuckle he taps against a coffee cup sounds like cavedrip.

“How old is that sound?” Swellman asks.

“What are you looking at?”

Swellman turns away from the big window, smeared with morning handprints.

“That women on the van the other day.”

Wally smiles. He reaches across the table and taps Swellman’s temple with a knuckle. “I need a pair of socks,” he says. “I don’t like muddy socks.”

Macbeth in Red Tartan

Katherine Nowakowski on CT Repertory’s Macbeth:

The first appearance of Macbeth himself in Act 1, Scene 3 as he and Banquo are returning from their recent battle, our “hero” dons a red colored tartan. Banquo pales in comparison in his earthy browns. Lady Macbeth’s first appearance is even more impressive. Her brilliant blood red dress is simple in style, but slaps you in the face with impact. With huge bell sleeves and a trail behind her about two feet she appears to be dripping wet with blood as she reads the letter from her husband. Moving into Act III, as Macbeth and his Lady appear as King and Queen, both are carrying even more layers representing this color of extreme passion. Our lady now wears the same red tartan as her husband’s over her drippy dress while her King now wears an exquisite regal bloody red robe over his. The only time these two do not appear wearing red is the scene when Duncan’s dead body is found. Both Macbeth and his Lady have changed their garments to hide the bloody evidence. They both almost look like they’re in disquise. It’s easy to lose them among the chaos without their trademark color.

Susan Gibb on 3-D thinking:

I’m thinking that the multilayers of story within a hyperfiction piece lend themselves easily to 3-D, (I’m not talking 3-D animation here, but rather still on the storyboard layout and the eventual finished piece) and I can imagine it as similar to a universe where the objects (textboxes, or images, sounds, etc) are self-contained within an object, let’s say a cube–connected to appropriate other cubes that follow a story line–that can be clicked on, would come forward and open up to be read/viewed/enjoyed. Another click would send it back into the background so that another choice can be made.

Computer Science in the Courtroom

Here’s to Connecticut’s computer science faculty for advocating reason in the Julie Amero case. Hard to believe that their suggestion–an “independent investigation” of the case (people can figure out what happened in the classroom)–hasn’t already come to pass.

Dirt-Worshipper up ‘n’ Running

Katharine Nowakowski has a weblog up where she will examine Shakespeare and other literature round the clock.

Follow the link here or in the sidebar.

In addition, and present tensely, I’m watching a little television and see a fairly inane commercial for community service. The music is deep and aptly profound and the enjoining famous people appear sincere. Doesn’t work though.

Hypertext and Editing

Susan Gibb wrestles with editing the hypertext:

The premise is simple, a couple who either did or didn’t stay together after a college relationship and summer cross-country trip; the stories relate in that they are different viewpoints and different paths–the what if’s we all wonder about. But where they intersect–the hyperlink–doesn’t completely make sense as I have it, based upon words alone. The reader may well wander about forever and not come to the end of the story. There’s also a flow that doesn’t always necessary represent a logical storyline when links are clicked.

In-Bodied and Surrounded

I say Yes to this entry by Diana Greco on spatial learning. She writes

Learning to walk in cities is a way to learn about how to participate in civic life, how to recognize and inhabit shared space.

In CT this sense of “learning,” which was very a much a part of my everyday life in El Paso, Texas, is hard to sense in a suburban setting. The town center is one thing or the Mexican village court, walled on one side by a cathedral entrance.

What is a stranger on the bus vs one at a Burger King?