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Mercury OS

mercuryos.com

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Re: Mercury OS

#51

Post by m463 »

hexomancer wrote: post #18

This looks like the exact opposite of what I would do if I were to redesign operating systems. The job of operating system is just to run application and get out of the way, and most importantly be deterministic and reliable. I don't need my OS to "predict what I might need", I know what I need myself.

I would go in a different direction too.

Personally, I would like some sort of "personal workspaces". Sort of virtual desktops that were project-oriented.

I would like switch to a project, find all my notes, emails, lists, files and more (terminal windows? web browsing/tabs? apps?) in that environment.

and when I run out of time, shut it down. Next time I switch to it, all my context is right there, ready to jump in.

could be some combination of fast-user-switching, virtual desktops, containers, vms, don't know? but unified.

Re: Mercury OS

#52

Post by metadat »

m463 wrote: post #51
hexomancer wrote: post #18

This looks like the exact opposite of what I would do if I were to redesign operating systems. The job of operating system is just to run application and get out of the way, and most importantly be deterministic and reliable. I don't need my OS to "predict what I might need", I know what I need myself.

I would go in a different direction too. Personally, I would like some sort of "personal workspaces". Sort of virtual desktops that were project-oriented. I would like switch to a project, find all my notes, emails, lists, files and more (terminal windows? web browsing/tabs? apps?) in that environment. and when I run out of time, shut it down. Next time I switch to it, all my context is right there, ready to jump in.…

+1 to this, it's crazy to lose all (or most) contexts across a reboot or when switching between machines. Each app has some sync capabilities (e.g. PowerPoint, web browsers, Google docs, chrome tabs, Firefox tabs), but there is still no universal solution.

Fuck.

Re: Mercury OS

#53

Post by _zzaw »

rpeden wrote: post #28
alexfringes wrote: post #19

Just for context: this is a 4 yo design study by friend and amazing product designer Jason Yuan, who also worked on Sprout.place and more recently some stuff at Apple (@jasonyuandesign). A lot of the comments currently seem to miss this and are focusing on immediate feasibility, “successful” design, or ability to deploy irl. That is not the point here. Things like this are both creative exposition, as well as corner…

I enjoy this kind of creative exploration. I get a lot of value from HN, but technocratic communities often fail to understand the value of reimagining everyday things. They sometimes get so caught up in the technical bits and pieces they don't like about something you end up with responses like those you in this discussion, or HN's reaction to Dropbox, or Shallots Slashdot's reaction to the iPod.

Yeah, this whole thread is why Hacker News has the "orangesite" reputation it does. I wouldn't have shared anything like this on here, and that is a criticism of HN, not projects like Mercury OS.

I thought this was an interesting project. The site is well-designed. The UI is attractive. As a designer, I really enjoy reading about these things. The fact that this isn't something you'd build your personally customized Linux distro on is not a problem for me. (And no, I don't know the designer or any of his friends. I think the challenge the guy took on was interesting, and I liked reading about it.)

I like HN because of what people share here, but I've never liked the community itself, and this thread is a pretty clear example of why.

Re: Mercury OS

#54

Post by EyeSayUntoThee »

anigbrowl wrote: post #49
ehutch79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that sounds like pretty standard marketing copy. Definitely nothing to say this isn't a thing someone intends on bringing to market.

Speculative literally means conjectural, hypothetical, toying with an idea for its own sake, though. It's not a word I associate with product of any kind, more with a sketch than a prototype.

The screenshots tricked me.

Re: Mercury OS

#55

Post by cwe »

This title should have a (2019) on it. But I was happy to see this pop up again here, as it’s an increasingly possible and compelling UX for AI agents, where the rest of the chrome and complexity of computing is stripped away to the core actions we really need out of the software we use. I hope they give this a fresh look and try building it. Lindy looks like a close attempt

Re: Mercury OS

#56

Post by janalsncm »

ehutch79 wrote: post #44
renewiltord wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it non-obvious? The page goes like: 1. Title 2. Screenshot 3. "Mercury is a speculative reimagining ..."

Yeah, that sounds like pretty standard marketing copy. Definitely nothing to say this isn't a thing someone intends on bringing to market.

To me there were a couple of giveaways.

1. “Art direction” is the second tab. There’s no technical components, no installation info, no GitHub.

2. Jason Yuan Design in the footer. So clearly some kind of UX person/group built this, not a hacker collective.

3. Flowery UX-heavy language and the absence of concrete features. Focusing on the “what” rather than the “how”.

Re: Mercury OS

#57

Post by warent »

janalsncm wrote: post #56
ehutch79 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that sounds like pretty standard marketing copy. Definitely nothing to say this isn't a thing someone intends on bringing to market.

To me there were a couple of giveaways. 1. “Art direction” is the second tab. There’s no technical components, no installation info, no GitHub. 2. Jason Yuan Design in the footer. So clearly some kind of UX person/group built this, not a hacker collective. 3. Flowery UX-heavy language and the absence of concrete features. Focusing on the “what” rather than the “how”.

I shouldn't need to be a detective to understand the point of a website lol, unless that is the point. It was completely non obvious to me as well.

Re: Mercury OS

#58

Post by unethical_ban »

ehutch79 wrote: post #15

I'm not sure how this works for more complex stuff? What about a PO in an ERP? Accounting functions? SOmeone adding records toa. general ledger? editing/viewing a 3d model? Editing a video? Multitrack audio?

This is like seeing a new design for a custom forklift vehicle and asking what the 0-60 is.

Re: Mercury OS

#59

Post by janalsncm »

rpeden wrote: post #28
alexfringes wrote: post #19

Just for context: this is a 4 yo design study by friend and amazing product designer Jason Yuan, who also worked on Sprout.place and more recently some stuff at Apple (@jasonyuandesign). A lot of the comments currently seem to miss this and are focusing on immediate feasibility, “successful” design, or ability to deploy irl. That is not the point here. Things like this are both creative exposition, as well as corner…

I enjoy this kind of creative exploration. I get a lot of value from HN, but technocratic communities often fail to understand the value of reimagining everyday things. They sometimes get so caught up in the technical bits and pieces they don't like about something you end up with responses like those you in this discussion, or HN's reaction to Dropbox, or Shallots Slashdot's reaction to the iPod.

The interesting thing to me is that a compromise is totally feasible and doesn’t need its own OS to accomplish. Let me save a “workflow”.

What is a workflow? A collection of apps, all with their internal states saved, and their positions saved on the screen. Let me close my current flow and open a new flow, with as little friction as possible. I could have an “email” flow in the morning, a “repo 1” flow after that, a “repo 2” flow, (and repo 1+2 etc) a documentation/paper reading flow, and on and on. A few macros can probably accomplish this. Maybe it already exists?

On a more fundamental level the authors are totally right about the debilitating distractions of apps and their damn notifications. But you’d need OS-level control to address that.

Re: Mercury OS

#60

Post by unethical_ban »

I knew, as soon as this "OS" title didn't lead to a Unix-like general purpose OS, that there would be a lot of shitting on it.

Stay in your lanes, designers! Humanity cannot improve on the taskbar/window configuration for any use case, ever.

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