Windows Explorer

Above, a partial screenshot from the Microsoft blog Building Windows 8, showing purported improvements to Windows Explorer. Some computer users might find the above display appealing, in the manner of a well-stocked kitchen. I’m reminded though of my first reaction to Microsoft Office 2007: looking at screenshots made me decide that I wanted nothing to do with the new Word, and I soon switched to Macs at work and at home. Right now I can imagine a Windows user looking at the future of Windows Explorer and thinking about making the same switch.

The Office-style ribbon of the new Explorer seems a spectacularly counter-intuitive design choice: Microsoft’s data shows that users access 86.7% of commands in Explorer by means of context menus and keyboard shortcuts. In other words, users do almost everything with right-clicks and the keyboard. So why fill screen space with a ribbon? Here is the Building Windows 8 explanation:

With greater than 85% of command usage being invoked using a method other than the primary UI, there was clearly an opportunity to improve the Explorer user experience to make it more effective — more visible and uniformly accessible.

The reasoning here isn’t persuasive. If you can make dinner with most of your kitchen tools in cabinets and drawers, there’s no need to set those tools out on the table before you begin making dinner.

A related post
Word 2007 (Word-processing and its discontents)

Beach Boys in the NYT crossword

Tomorrow’s New York Times crossword by Peter A. Collins is Beach Boys-centric, with five song titles divided among nine clues. Why tomorrow’s puzzle? My guess is that it’s because the first incarnation of the group, the Pendletones, began playing together fifty years ago this month: Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine, and Mike Love. If August 31, 1961 has any specific Beach Boys significance, I’m unaware of it.

If you do the Times puzzle in syndication, look for tomorrow’s puzzle on October 12.

Infinity jest

From a reader’s comment at the Daily Dish:

I’ve never really had any problem with infinity. Why? Because if the universe is infinite, then I am by definition the center of the universe. Any direction I point, you can travel an infinite distance. I might be small and insignificant compared to the rest of the universe, but knowing I’m the center makes everything OK.

P.S. This also means you are also the center of the universe ;)

Three suggestions

If you’re driving on a highway and the traffic suddenly slows or stops, and the vehicles behind you are at some distance:

1. Turn on your hazard lights.

2. Leave significant space between you and the vehicle in front of you.

3. Keep checking your rear-view mirror.

If someone coming up behind you is not paying full attention, your hazard lights might catch their eye and prompt them to slow down or stop in time. If not, the free space in front of your vehicle might lessen the severity of a collision.

I called the Illinois State Police to ask what they thought about using hazard lights in this way. A desk sergeant said it was the right thing to do and added the second and third suggestions. Please, pass them on.

[What prompted me to think about these things? Driving on interstates through rain and fog and using hazard lights when traffic suddenly slowed and I was the last in line. I also left significant space and checked my mirror, but I do those things without thinking and would not have thought to recommend them.]

David “Honeyboy” Edwards (1915–2011)

The last of the last:

David Honeyboy Edwards, believed to have been the oldest surviving member of the first generation of Delta blues singers, died on Monday at his home in Chicago. He was 96. . . .

Over eight decades Mr. Edwards knew or played with virtually every major figure who worked in the idiom, including Charley Patton, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. He was probably best known, though, as the last living link to Robert Johnson, widely hailed as the King of the Delta Blues.

David Honeyboy Edwards, Delta Bluesman, Dies at 96 (New York Times)

David “Honeyboy” Edwards on YouTube
Interview, WBEZ, Chicago (2008)
“Traveling Riverside Blues” (2001)
“Crossroads” (1997)
“Who May Your Regular Be” (1951)
“The Army Blues” (1942)
“Spread My Raincoat Down” (1942)

The word of the day: quaquaversal

From the Oxford English Dictionary, the word of the day is quaquaversal: “Chiefly Geol. Dipping, pointing, or occurring in every direction.” Does this word make you too think of Lucky’s monologue?

Reasons for Apple’s success

Adrian Slywotzky on the reasons for Apple’s success:

With each launch of another device or application, Apple seems to pull exquisite new products, fully formed, from the minds of a few geniuses in turtlenecks. From the outside, Apple’s secret sauce would seem to be inspired design (read, “think different”); and inspired marketing of that design. In other words, 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration (mostly experienced by eager customers scrambling to get the latest iPod or iPad). iPhone 5? “Eureka!”

The truth is really a lot different.

Steve Jobs and the Eureka Myth (HBR Blogs)

[I’d make an analogy to what many students think about good writing: that it just happens (to good writers), not that it’s the result of considerable planning and revision.]

1 PUN MULTI

Elaine and I went to the Asian market and bought some freekeh, some falafel mix, and a multi-color pun. It’s a surprisingly good pun, made in Korea by Morning Glory, with six choices: 0.5, 0.7, 1.0 black; 0.7 blue, green, red.

This post is for my son Ben, who loves puns. He’s on the ball, knows how to make a point, and is seldom irascible. And Ziyad products don’t make him falafel. Never!

[The box does say Ziyad Falafil, but falafel is the usual spelling. Freekeh is a grain, très Chic, I think.]

Letter art

“From idiosyncratic letterheads to sketches, stamps, cartoons and multiple choice form letters, what do a letter’s illustrations reveal?” They reveal many things. Look:

Elana Estrin, The art of the letter (University of Texas at Austin)

[Featuring Muhammad Ali, Al Hirschfeld, Irving Hoffman, Marcel Proust, Gertrude Stein, and John Steinbeck.]

Stalwart workers

They are intelligent, protective of their time away from work, and not especially interested in power, money, or becoming the boss. Thomas J. DeLong calls them “stalwart workers”:

Stop Ignoring the Stalwart Worker (Harvard Business Review Blogs, via Boing Boing)

[What I can’t figure out: how long have deLong’s people been spying on me? And you — are you a stalwart worker too?]