Source: Should all locks have keys? Phones, Castles, Encryption, and You. – YouTube, by CGP Grey
On the internet a digital lock must protect you from not just the neighborhood burglar but all burglars everywhere. On the internet there’s no such thing as distance.
Continue reading Should all locks have keys? Phones, Castles, Encryption, and You. – YouTube
Source: The Rules for Rulers – YouTube, by CGP Grey
RE: The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (2012), by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith
No man rules alone
- Keep the key supporters on your side
- Control the treasure
- Minimize key supporters
Countries where farmers’ votes don’t swing elections don’t have farming subsidies.
There is still much you can do. Once in power, make it easier for your key blocs to vote, and harder for others. Establish votings systems that reduce the number of blocs you need to win the more rivals you get. Draw election borders to predetermine the results for you or your cronies, and have party pre-elections with byzantine rules to determine who blocs even can vote for. Mix and match the above for even better power perpetuation. When approval ratings couldn’t be lower yet re-election rates couldn’t be higher, you’ll know you’ve succeeded.
You could take the moral path and ignore the big keys, but you’ll fight against those who didn’t. Good luck with that.
Source: Twitter thread on Thread Reader, Twitter thread on Twitter, by @gravislizard
almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983
You don’t even realize why the process is frustrating because it’s just The Way It Is.
Mice are for rapidly navigating through a complex and unstructured set of objects, like an app with dozens of options and input types
The reason mice are terrible is a matter of basic facts about human brains, hands, eyes and muscles. Hell, I think Jef Raskin covered it.
Keyboards present fewer possible discrete options. Mice present a continuum. One can be operated blind; the other requires feedback.
it’s worth noting that HYPERTEXT, specifically, is best with a mouse in a lot of cases. Wikipedia would suck on keyboard.
This is a FANTASTIC example of a mouse-optimal document. Any keyboard approach would be mediocre at best.
Your brain is GREAT at identifying points of interest here. From this array of 20+ unstructured links I can grab the ones I want.
I want to clarify that I am literally talking about the future of the human race and I am deadly serious about this. It’s not about me.
…
I am upset by the way that computers disenfranchise non-nerds. I wish it was better for me; I wish it WORKED AT ALL for everyone else.
GUIs are in no way more intuitive than keyboard interfaces using function keys such as the POS I posted earlier. Nor do they need to be.
GUIs require you to learn how to use a mouse, how input focus works, how multiple windows work, how modal dialogs work.
I believe well designed keyboard interfaces and well designed GUI interfaces have exactly the same learning curve.
Source: We have to rethink what “educated” means in a post-truth world — Quartz, by Stavros N. Yiannouka
RE: his forthcoming book What it means to be educated: Ideas for rethinking education for a post-truth world
In a world where knowledge is growing exponentially, the tools for acquiring and interpreting that knowledge are at least as important as the actual knowledge itself.
If we as individuals are to keep pace with the ever-growing accumulation of knowledge that makes and is in turn made possible by advances in technology, we need to engender within ourselves the desire to remain educated in the same way that we want to remain fit and healthy throughout our lives.
To do that we need to adopt a set of core values chief amongst them being respect for the substantiated truth. Through the scientific method, good education elevates fact over opinion. But it also acknowledges that the search for the truth can be never-ending and often involves a contest of competing ideas, a contest that is best resolved through open enquiry and rational discourse.
