One talk was by Stuart Hameroff on A New Marriage of Brain and Computer.  He is the guy that works with Penrose on the possibility that quantum effects in microtubules may be the source of consciousness.  I notice that he used calculations for computational capacity based on traditional neuron-based models that are very similar to my own calculations some years ago in “the brain and the web” when I worked out that the memory and computational capacity of a single human brain is very similar to those of the entire web. Hameroff then went on to say that there are an order of magnitude more microtubules (sub-cellular structures, with many per neuron), so the traditional calculations do not hold!

Microtubules are fascinating things, they are like little mechano sets inside each cell.  It is these microtubules that during cell division stretch out straight the chromosomes, which are normally tangled up the nucleus.  Even stranger those fluid  movements of amoeba gradually pushing out pseudopodia, are actually made by mechanical structures composed of microtubules, only looking so organic because of the cell membrane – rather like a robot covered in latex.

The main reason for going to the text talks was one by Steve Souders “Life’s Too Short – Write Fast Code” that has lots of tips for on speeding up web pages including allowing Javascript files to download in parallel.  I was particularly impressed by the quantification of costs of delays on web pages down to 100ms!

This is great.  Partly because of my long interest in time and delays in HCI. Partly because I want my own web scripts to be faster and I’ve already downloaded the Yahoo! YSlow plugin for FireFox that helps diagnose causes of slow pages.  And partly  because I get so frustrated waiting for things to happen, both on the web and on the desktop … and why oh why does it take a good minute to get a WiFi connection ….  and why doesn’t YouTube introduce better controls for skimming videos.

… and finally, because I’d already spent too much time skimming the tech talks, I looked at one last talk: David Levy, “No Time To Think” … how we are all so rushed that we have no time to really think about problems, not to mention life¹.  At least that’s what I think it said, because I skimmed it rather fast.

1. see also my own discussion of Slow Time [back]

I first saw this video when I was giving a talk at University of Peloponnese in Tripolis. Georgios¹ showed the video before I started, just because he thought it was fun. I was talking a little bit about physicality and the video brought up some really interesting issues relating to this and usability. Although it is a comic video we can unpack it and ask which of the problems that Ansgarr has as he changes technology from scroll to book would actually happen and which are more our own anachronistic view of the past.

The video starts with the technician coming in and Ansgarr. The technician asks if Ansgarr has been able to “open it”, Ansgarr says if it was that simple he wouldn’t have called the help desk. However, it turns out afterwards that he has managed to get as far as opening the book. Just like today the language used gets in the way: what does “open it” mean to a user?

It is interesting and quite reasonable that Ansgarr was able to open the book (even if he didn’t know he was doing so), because it requires little experimentation or playing with the book to open it. To know that the text starts at one end, that pages are read left to right are all clearly cultural knowledge that we do have to learn; but the fact that it can be opened is easily discoverable due to its physical nature.

However, Ansgarr has not proceeded further for fear of losing the text he has read. Just as with current technology, the Mediaeval child playing with the book might have had less problems here than the older monk. Designing to reduce fear is a major issue if we wish to engage those out of their teens. It would be nice to say this is just about perception it is hard to do real damage in most computer applications … but try saying that to the embarrassed lady who accidentally deleted a whole shared photo gallery when she meant to delete a single photo (recovering this took Fiona and I most of last night!).

The next part of the video has Ansgarr being shown how you turn very pages to see more text. This again I can see would not be obvious, and even less obvious that the text that ended at the bottom of the right-hand page continues at the top of the left-hand one.

Even worse must have been the cognitive shift from scrolls, where you could always see the context of what you were reading, to books, where you are trying to read the end of a sentence at the top of one page when the start of it is no longer visible. We take this for granted, but even for modern readers I’m sure there can be some interesting errors that occur as one reads across page-ends, just like the well known line-end effects:

Paris in
in the spring

After the page is turned, Ansgarr asks how he can see the text that he has previously read. the technician patiently explains how he can turn the page back over and Ansgarr is pleasantly surprised to see that the text is still there. Now this is exactly a point of digital anachronism. In Digital media it is by no means certain that of one goes back to where one was previously things will be the same. But the physical world is usually far easier; if you turn something over and then turn it back you expect to see what was there previously. Here is a clear place where we can ask how we can recreate some of this clarity of the physical world in the digital – how to exploit the power of dynamic content whilst preserving the intelligibility of more static invariants.

Finally the book is closed, Ansgarr goes back through the process: opens the book, skims the pages and closes it – he is satisfied, but as the technician leaves the room he finds he is stuck again and cant open the book. It turns out that it is upside down and he is trying to open it along the spine.

I am sure that left to his own devices Ansgarr would have found out that he could open the book at the left-hand side and worked from there. However, this again reveals a common problem today. The back of the book looked just like the front … and the tick box to “delete album” looked so so similar to “delete photo”.

1. one of my hosts there as part of the TIM project [back]

Not surprisingly Vint Cerf thought not, but I was surprised how well he avoided actually saying so. John Humphrys is experienced and politicians fear him in these early morning interviews, but to be honest he was completely outclassed by Vint Cerf who sidestepped, avoided and generally never addressed the question.

Web 2.0 was the heart of the issue. With end-user content now dominating the internet do service providers such as YouTube (of course owned by Google) have any responsibility for the kinds of material hosted?

This was in the context of videos of ‘happy slappers’ and other violent attacks being posted, but more generally that whereas TV in many countries is limited in the kinds of material it can show, particularly early in the evening when children are more likely to be watching, is limited by a mixture of voluntary and satutory codes. Why not the internet?

Vint Cerf repeatedly re-iterated the same message “Google is law abiding” if content is not legal it is removed. Implicitly the message was “if it is not illegal it is OK”, but as I said he carefully avoided saying so.

The closest point to actually addressing the question was when John Humphrys suggested that technologies could be misused like research for atomic power being used for nuclear weapons (strange I thought it went the other way round?). Vent Cerf’s response was, the standard neutrality of technology stance, that the makers of roads were not responsible for car deaths, strip development … the same argument used by arms dealers, manufacturers of gas guzzling cars, and scientists in every repressive regime in recent history.

According to Cerf if you are a worried parent you need to buy good filtering software; the solution is at the edges of the net … and of course does not involve the likes of Google … who it appears from the context is at the centre?
Now there are very good arguments against regulation both ethical (freedom of expression) and practical (volume of material, international access). The disappointing, and worrying, aspect of this interview was that Google’s key public face was unwilling or unable to constructively enter the debate at all.

1. “The 0810 Interview: Godfather of the Internet”, BBC4, Today Programme, Wednesday, 29th August 2007 [back]