Knowing .NET

Today, during my 692nd hour SCUBA diving, my life was jeopardized by a computer malfunction. I was trying out a new piece of equipment, an air-integrated diving computer, that replaces a "conventional" dive computer (used to track safety relating to "the bends") and two analog devices: the depth gauge and the pressure gauge that tells you how much air is left in the tank. One minute I was enjoying the beautiful metridiums of Monterey Bay, the next I was looking at my computer and thinking "That's not a correct reading," and the next I was looking at that empty grayness that only a dead LCD can achieve. I no longer had any instruments for determining the only thing that really matters: how long you have to safely reach the surface.

Sure, I didn't need a computer to tell me that I was in about 45 of water, that I had at least 30 minutes of air left in the tank, and that getting to the surface would take about 10 minutes, the majority of which would be hanging 15 feet below the surface in an almost-certainly-unneeded precaution against the bends. So, while it's accurate to say my computer put my life in jeopardy, it didn't endanger me. I knew I wasn't in danger. And, because I ignored the fact that I knew all those good things, signaled my buddy that I'd had a malfunction (a signal that involves the middle finger), and called the dive, surfaced, and had a hell of a long surface swim back to the shore, I stayed out of danger (an amazing percentage of dive accidents happen because the first problem is ignored...).

Here's my point: computers suck. They're unreliable, expensive, difficult to use, incomprehensible when functioning, and utterly useless when they fail. I've never had a pressure gauge fail on me. I've never had a depth gauge fail on me. Such things happen with analog gauges, but I wager the rate of computer failures to analog failures is hundreds if not thousands to one. Every time someone talks about lack of innovation or "Where are computers going?" we should keep this in mind: computers are nothing, nothing, compared to what they should, and will, become.

We are marking notches into clay tablets and wondering if innovation in writing is dead. Virtually the entire history of computers lies before us: we exist in a footnote between Alan Turing and God-Knows-Who. Today's hardware is crap. Today's software is crap. Today's tools to build software are crap. Let's change that.

7:06:27 PM    comment []   trackback []

Do I have to say anything more to explain my Tablet PC game idea?

For those who haven't been in an arcade for the past few years, "Dance Dance Revolution" is one of the greatest games of all time. You have to move your feet in synchrony with directional arrows on the screen. Simple to describe, doesn't look hard, is hard.

At the Game Developer's Conference, Sony was demoing what I'm sure they're not going to call "Flail Flail Revolution," in which you point a Webcam at yourself and must move your hands into the air in synchrony to screen sectors flashing on your computer.

So my idea is that you must match pen strokes flashed on your screen, building up a line drawing over time. It ain't art, but DDR ain't dancin' either.

6:08:04 PM    comment []   trackback []

Given Yahoo's infrastructure, this is very clever. But I don't think Yahoo Groups yet provides an RSS feed. But surely that's only a matter of time.

P.S. Phipps clarifies that he didn't call OS opponents Luddites or, if he did, he didn't mean it in the popular sense of "anti-technology zealot" but in a more refined way. I've asked if he has a link to his argument (I'm a big fan of argument by historical analogy. You can be wrong, of course, but history does place certain constraints on hyperbole.)

5:54:32 PM    comment []   trackback []