Hi Rob, > Xanadu was started a decade before the Star project, and Computer > Lib/Dream Machines was published in 74. There may be something to the > idea of epochs, or at least eras. :-)
Xanadu is a fascinating example, and the rules that governed its development offer a good starting point for any software development project! > Does this relate to the idea of "affordances"? Yes indeed - that certain interactions are streamlined and prioritised, whereas others are either inordinately complex or simply not presented to the user as a possibility. The issue here is that it may take a certain amount of 'technical literacy' to overcome these affordances - many people do not have the time or the inclination to root their phone, for instance. > As we lose the ability to exercise our freedom we also lose the > awareness that we can? I think this is true, but also the incredibly powerful sense of seduction around these devices means that people may not actually -want- freedom in the first place. Many would rather a beautiful object in rose gold with the latest hype feature (fingerprint sensors, 4k selfie cameras...) Olia Lialina has a very interesting perspective on the erosion of user agency in Turing Complete User - http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/ > At the same time that apps and search are firewalling users from > filesystems more and more, Git, Urbit, IPFS, and other modern > distributed/versioned/cryptogrphically secured filesystems are putting > filesystems beyond the control of locked-down software and making them > truly distributed tools for storage and communication. Escaping the > lockdown in this way is good, at least relative to that lockdown. This is a good topic for a follow up. I just barely touched on distributed storage in the text, and mainly from a negative 'cloud' perspective. It is true that there are some very interesting alternatives, but often they are quite technical and exist outside of a practical workflow for the mainstream user. > On a related note, where has "View Source" gone in mobile web browsers? Certainly a related note - and a good question. > - Rob. > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org > http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list NetBehaviour@netbehaviour.org http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
