[Tfug] More "pie in the sky"... :-/

[Joshua Zeidner]

 Have a look at this Xerox project:
http://www2.parc.com/csl/projects/placeless/

 also see work of David Gelernter:
http://cs-www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.html

 -jmz

On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 8:21 PM, Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Hierarchical file systems (i.e., hierarchical *name spaces*)
> seem well suited to "technical minds" but seem to pose
> problems for "casual users".
>
> Sure, you can use the (lame) analogy of "file folders" to
> help get people to relate to "directories", etc.  But, it
> seems like people can't generalize this to a *hierarchical*
> system (perhaps because people don't think of putting file
> folders *within* other file folders to arbitrary "depths"?)
>
> So, I've been trying to think about how we (as humans)
> organize our thoughts and our *things*.
>
> And, I guess I've come to the decision that we *don't*
> organize things hierarchically -- or, at least, if we
> *do*, it is a very *shallow* and *broad* hierarchy.
>
> It also seems like we rel heavily on "associations"
> (relationships?) between items/thoughts.
>
> E.g., my address book (a piece of software) implicitly
> acknowledges this:  I can "find" someone who's name I
> may have forgotten by, instead, remembering the relationships
> that person has with the people that I know.
>
> So, for example, I can look up a friend and, from his "record",
> access his childrens' records.  From one of those children,
> I can access their *spouse*.  And, from that spouse, get the
> name of the company that employs them.  And, from that, search
> for all people (in my address book) that work for that company...
> [thereafter, I have to rely on brute force "recognition" to
> get the right individual  :< ]
>
> This suggests any naming scheme should generously support
> aliases (symlinks, etc.).
>
> My question, then, is how can you organize information in a way
> that makes it easier for people to *remember* where it is and/or
> *find* when they forget it's "location" (i.e., name)?
>
>
>
>
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-- 
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV
will be fought with sticks and stones." --Albert Einstein

- http://www.joshuazeidner.com/
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