Direct manipulation interfaces let us interact with software materials using our spatial and physical intuitions. Manipulation by programming or configuration, what I’ll call programmatic interfaces, trades off that interaction freedom for more power and precision — programs, like scripts or structured queries, can manipulate abstract concepts like repetition or parameters of some software behavior that we can’t or don’t represent directly. It makes sense to directly manipulate lines...| thesephist.com
I spent the last three weeks in Seoul, partly visiting family I hadn’t seen in years and partly taking a vacation from my usual work in my usual city in my usual context of life. While I haven’t been able to work much at all, I spent my subway rides and waiting-in-line times reading the Singularity Sky series of novels by Charles Stross.| thesephist.com
I’m a hyperlink maximalist: everything should be a hyperlink, including everything that is hyperlinked by the author, everything that isn’t hyperlinked by the author, and perhaps even the hyperlinks themselves. Words should be hyperlinked, but so should be every interesting phrase, quote, name, proper noun, paragraph, document, and collection of documents I read.| thesephist.com