Dullroar: March 2004 Archives

Keyboard vs. mouse

The other day in a zephyr(*) conversation, the old "I hate this interface because it uses the mouse too much" complaint came out. Almost immediately, someone sent us to this AskTog column, which points out that in studies, people get things done faster using the mouse than the keyboard. To some, this might seem obvious, but to me (and other linux/unix lovers), it seems counterintuitive. The mouse? It requires so much extra movement. But here's the cool part: the keyboard seems fast because the mental challenge of remembering and using all those shortcuts (in my editor of choice, just saving a document requires me to hit ctrl-X and then ctrl-S, and to quit I hit ctrl-X ctrl-C) is significant enough that the user experiences a form of amnesia. The user literally does not remember the (not insignificant) time spent trying to figure out what keys to press. The mouse, on the other hand, seems slow because it's so dead simple, the user can think of other things (like, say, the task he's trying to do) while using the mouse. I was totally blown away by this concept. If you were also, there are two more Tog articles on the keyboard vs. mouse debate: part 2 and part 3.

(*) Zephyr is an online chat system used at CMU. It's ancient, uses UDP, is tied to kerberos, and has no good support from mainstream IM clients. However, the one good thing it has is that each message sent in group chat has a subject as well as a body. This might seem dumb on the surface, but what it does is enable multiple conversations to go on at the same time without all the traffic running together in a nonsensical mess. Most other IM systems use multiple chat rooms to do this, so you wind up clicking back and forth between tabs (or windows, or however your IM client handles it) like crazy to keep track of several conversations. Hey, I wonder if the argument above about mousing being faster applies here too: the work of disambiguating a bunch of text via subject tags makes it seem faster/better than putting each conversation in a separate "place." In reality, maybe the non-zephyr way is better, even though it feels less convenient.

Posted by Andy at 02:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (5)

Union Orthotics and Prosthetics

Companies come and go, but buildings tend to stick around. On the section of Liberty Ave., between Bloomfield and the Strip District (two Pittsburgh neighborhoods, for those of you not from the area), there are two particularly random examples and one mural (actually, a mosaic).

On the front of Union Orthotics and Prosthetics' main office (almost directly across the street from the excellent Church Brew Works), there's a mosaic about electricity. It's got a kite and key, a couple pictures of electric plants (coal and hydro, I guess), a tower for high voltage lines, and, in the background, an outlet. Really, it's rather tastefully done for what it is. But then, why's it on the front of an orthotics and prosthetics company? Seems like maybe once upon a time, perhaps an electric utility owned the building. (I'm assuming it was a utility and not a contractor because only a public utility would spend its money on a mural instead of, say, paying the CEO or shareholders.)

A little further up the street, a building that is currently a Quizno's Sub was, as recently as September 2003, Hangar Prosthetic (apparently the 3500-4000 block of Liberty Ave. is prosthetic city). The usual queasiness in associating medical stuff and food kept me from trying that Quizno's for a while, but I finally managed to do it. Better than Subway, sure, but I prefer Uncle Sam's.

So what have we learned? The life cycle of buildings is apparently: electric utility, then prosthetics specialist, then sub shop. Only time will tell what a sub shop turns into.

The top picture is the mosaic, of course. And the bottom picture is the building itself. Click on either for larger versions.

Update: Searches on the Allegheny County Real Estate Property Values site reveal that Sargent Electric owns a lot of property in that neighborhood. I'm thinking Sargent's probably the company that built the building and put up the mosaic.

Posted by Andy at 07:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

LOAF: social networking over email

Loaf is a piece of software that adds social networking to your email. Why? Because a lot of interesting things can be done (e.g. spam filtering) when you know where in your social network an email came from (or whether the sender is in your network at all). The beautiful thing is that it doesn't compromise privacy and it doesn't require you to send a huge amount of data with each email. Check it out, as they say.

Many2many also has a short post about LOAF here.

Posted by Andy at 06:11 PM | Permalink

Pod

picture of Pod My sister's birthday was Saturday, so the girlfriend and I drove to Philadelphia for dinner with the family. We ate at Pod, an ultra-hip pan-asian restaurant on the University of Pennsylvania's campus.

First things first: The food was fantastic. The samosas were light and perfectly spiced, the seared tuna melted in our mouths, the mushroom dumplings were beatific, and even the chicken was notably delicious.

The decor was where the restaurant really stood out. It's either one of the best or one of the worst decorated restaurants in Philadelphia. The design is a hyper-futuristic combination of white walls, tables, and chairs; curved surfaces; and colored lights. (My sister spent the night colored green by a spotlight above her.) There were a few enclosed booth-like areas (called pods, no doubt) that had intense mono-chromatic lighting that would cycle from color to color. The whole place evoked Sleeper, or being encased in a James Turrell installation. To see what the heck I'm talking about, you can find pictures of Pod at its web site (see link above), or via a google image search.

Oh, and about the bathrooms: Just picture a slightly-more-roomy stainless steel airplane bathroom and you'll have the idea. Practically, not a good idea, but they did seem to mesh well with the rest of the place.

Posted by Andy at 06:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Site RSS tweak

Just tweaked the MovableType templates so that dullroar's syndication feeds contain formatting and links in addition to the raw text. That should improve things a bit for those who prefer using news aggregators.

Posted by Andy at 09:33 AM | Permalink

VFW Post 278

Continuing the patriotic murals theme from a few weeks ago, the Veterans of Foreign Wars building in Pittsburgh's Bloomfield neighborhood (on Liberty, opposite the Bloomfield Bridge) is painted with all manner of military scenes, from a sailor coming home to the flag raising at Iwo Jima.

One of the most arresting parts of the mural is the picture of the three soldiers staring into the distance. It's probably based on the Three Soldiers Statue that stands near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but unlike the statue, the men in the mural appear much more haunted by the things they've seen.

Sorry there's so much extra stuff (cars, posts, poles) in the pictures. This building borders a busy supermarket parking lot. And as always, click on the pics for larger versions.