Ryan's Journal

Like a broken record, I've mentioned before how I don't really like computers, and I'm going to mention it yet again. While writing software for ryanlee.org and other folks can be fun, I'm getting kind of sick of trying to keep up with the blogging world's software. I have yet to implement topical organization or TrackBack, and here they go trying this new Echo project. If Echo catches on at the expense of RSS, then I'm done writing my own journaling stuff. But I guess that's how it will always go for sufficiently adopted social software. The small timers like me dispense with the hobbyist hacking and adopt someone else's implementation, mostly because it's too much work to DIY.

People used to think the computer monitor was the actual computer (people probably still do). That's because all the interaction happened through that puny, bright screen acreage, and if that isn't where the action is at, then where is it? Certainly not that loud, ugly, beige box sitting in the corner.

Now that people are all used to the idea of using keyboards and mice and dozens of wires and power plugs to get their behemoths to run email programs, we should really think about improving the state of computing. Can we get away from the idea that useful computing must take place through a screen? Computer issues are really about getting data into the computer and then doing something with it. We don't need to be limited by RSI-inducing keyboards and mice or trackballs, and certainly not by one small display hogging deskspace.

I want to manipulate my files by hand. I want to store things in a way that makes better sense than folder hierarchies. I want to look for something and find it in one go, not by rating search results in my mind. I want more from these data processors. Basically, I want today's concept of computers to be resoundingly archaic in twenty years. No more keyboards, no more mice, no more monitors, no more boxes.

Right. So, for my next trick, I'll eliminate world hunger...

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