Re: I can't beleive this
On Thu, 11 Mar 1999, Steve Lamb wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Mar 1999 14:40:35 -0500 (EST), Michael Stenner wrote:
>
> >But it shouldn't be an "exclusive or". As time has passed, I have come
> >to respect the people who view computers as tools. They don't want to
> >have to learn, they don't want to have to configure, and they don't want
> >fine-grained control. They just want to run mathematica, or type some
> >documents, etc.
>
> I have no respect for those people. Yes, a computer is a tool. But
> lets drop in a few other examples....
> So I ask you, what makes a computer, a tool more complex than any other
> in human history, the only one EXCEPT from training?
I think that's the point. SHOULD a computer be "a tool more complex
than any other in human history"? Most complex gadgets have become
easier to operate with time-- cars, TVs, xerox machines, coffee
makers, tape recorders. Computers seem to be the lone exception.
Instead they become steadily more powerful-- which is nice-- but
also more cumbersome and less "intuitive" with each new generation
of hardware or software release.
My favorite example-- it turns out Microsoft Office has about half a
meg of sounds-- little .WAV files that go "click", "sss", "eh", "ho",
"ding!", "donk!" "whirr" etc at an almost imperceptible volume
level as one presses menu keys, saves files, opens directories, and
otherwise operates the program. Apparently the Good Folks in
Redmon figured no one would be happy in an "office" unless office-
machinery-sounds were in the background. This is not something I
would ever have expected to have found in a software package, and
I've been using computers since 1964. Should we really expect a
housewife in Peoria or llama herder in Peru or economist in Estonia
to anticipate such a marvel of functional design (and then to delete
the directory with the same alacrity that I did)?
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ms44278@huey.csun.edu
Mike Shupp
California State University, Northridge
Graduate Student, Dept. of Anthropology
http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/index.htm
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