In the realm of flash/processing/etc visual goofery, the term 'art' is often thrown around, but not often deserved.

However.

This piece by the guy at quasimondo.com is the first piece I've seen that really made me feel something.

Essentially it's something that grabs photos from flickr, adds effects, animates and loops while playing a generated soundtrack.

But it's way more than that, or at least it feels that way. It feels like memory. Or seeing someone else's memory, and the way they think about them, coming back again and again to one image or another. The soundtrack adds another layer, but for some reason, it's not an added dimension of warmth. I liked it better playing against the background of something spacious, minimal, and comtemplative, like the band Explosions In the Sky.

I don't really have a great definition for art, but I think the thing that gives this piece its spark is that all of the photos are a piece of human intent. But what do I know.

Anyway, go check it out. Great stuff.
posted on 4/20/2007 10:14:00 PM

Two really wonderful "Command-Line-For-The-21st-Century" products I've had the pleasure to work with recently are, Quicksilver (for OS X)


and Enso (for Win XP).


I call these post-unix CLIs for a few reasons:

• They are instantly accessible via keyboard shortcuts (no alt-tabbing through the plethora of open applications to get to it)


• They are modeless in that there's no cd-ing around to get to wherever you want to execute a certain command


• They provide fast, pre-indexed searches (i.e., fast searches) of their cataloged material (generally executables, bookmarks, mp3s, documents)


• They go beyond the 80-character monospaced font presentation that has been the rule for command line implementations

Deep vs. Wide Interaction

I'm really glad that folks have pursued this avenue of UI because it provides the really wide interaction available via keystrokes versus the deep interaction of mouse or other pointer/gestural interfaces.

For example, within a few keystrokes you can specify one out of hundreds of thousands of commands, names, etc. However, more nuanced spacial/visual interaction, like sketching, selection of an unnamed image, etc., is better done via a mouse or pen interface.

With the advent of WIMP (window/icon/mouse/pointer) interfaces, it looked like the command line might disappear from most desktops forever. But with these two products it looks like CLI power might continue, without much of the baggage of the traditional command prompt.

You can get things done lightning-quick with both of these, though Quicksilver is by far the more mature of the pair, with a bit more polish and more of a plugin community built up around it. However, Enso looks like they have some interesting expansions planned; also, I'm really interested in how they move forward, flying the usability flag high for all to see. (I can't help it; I like reading books about interaction, and when they drop names like Jef Raskin I get excited to see how some of those ideas turn out in practical application.
posted on 4/18/2007 10:54:00 PM