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Feynman’s Razor
81–90 of 138 posts
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be interesting to see, but my guess is that it would be exploited to death very quickly. There is a constant cat and mouse game between search engine and those who want to "optimize" their results. Going back and staying there would be like having the mouse stand still, not good. It would have to be a different product, developed in parallel, rather than a snapshot of the past.
I don't think it's that simple. It's a cat and mouse game but the cat can't catch two different mice. If the classic Google algorithm is significantly different from the new one, SEO that's targeting the new algorithm wouldn't be as successful with the old one which is also barely used (so no one would bother optimizing for the old algorithm). Then make it so the new algorithm penalizes people abusing the old/simple…
Obviously the SEO scoundrels would make two pages, each optimized for different algorithm. Websites are effectively free to make.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#83In UX, the right way to think about your users is not that they are dumb, but that they are very smart but very busy, and don't have time for your app's bullshit. It puts you in the right frame of mind when designing interfaces. It's not about dealing with dunces, but about being efficient with peoples time and attention.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#84The "This message can't be saved" text is not that bad, actually. The important thing is that the second part tells the user what to do. The first part could be rewritten "An error occurred" and that would be fine, too, since the details are not likely to matter to the user -- the important thing is what the user ought to do next.
A driver does not need to know the reason for a detour. All that matters is whether the alternative route is clearly indicated.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#85The "This message can't be saved" text is not that bad, actually. The important thing is that the second part tells the user what to do. The first part could be rewritten "An error occurred" and that would be fine, too, since the details are not likely to matter to the user -- the important thing is what the user ought to do next. A driver does not need to know the reason for a detour. All that matters is whether the…
It’s pretty important to know the cause, though. “The message doesn’t exist” is fairly different from “You password/token/auth is expired and thus, the message can’t be saved”. Or “the hard drive is unavailable” or “the network has timed out”.
It’s also important to know what action can’t be done. “The message can’t be saved” from “The message can’t be viewed anymore” which hints that it may have been properly saved.
Please don’t bring back the fashion of dialog boxes just showing “Error in the system”. Or even “Error 1521”, which, although nowadays it would help for a perfect StackOverflow search, is still annoying.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#86The author introduces a distinction that I hadn't fully considered before: difficult writing is not all equally problematic. Being misunderstood is a problem, but how and why you are misunderstood matters.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#87Nah I like New Scientist and Quanta Magazine etc… to give me an insight into a complicated topic. It isn’t adequate for a professor to understand the subject to write a thesis sure, but there is no harm in more people kinda understanding something. This is especially true of the sort of dumbing down the big short film did, when the impact on society means everyone should sort of understand what happened Nd why the economy tanked.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#88Simplicity is key, but over-simplicity is a killer.
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why bring that up? We all know it's BS, and the people who do it are expletive deleted morons. We're interested in what the smart people do .. and even better smart with a touch of class. The older I get the less and less patience I have with people pushing the "it's all politics", "everybody lies and manages up/down and if you don't you're a fool", or it's all about image. While there's smallish elements of truth to…
The corruption is systematic and automated, so the struggle and response must be systematic and automated as well as forceful. Not knee jerk. But more organized than simple individuals doing the right thing. And much more forceful. It must become very dangerous to be an exploiter of the human condition. Must become very dangerous for capitalists, executives, marketers, and so on. Force and systematization/automation…
You've got too much time on your hands with all this jibber-jabber. Maybe you should find something to do me thinks...
Re: Feynman’s Razor
#90Sometimes it feels like the trend online right now is to design everything to make you stupider, on the theory that if it asks less of you will go along with it more easily. For instance, Google results seem more "least common denominator" every month. No longer can I search for something subtle and get subtle results; their algorithm pushes me towards and unhelpful answers. Maybe it's because lots of people do respo…
Many of you will be familiar with this story: military pilot gear was once designed for the average person, but then they realized that actually, most people deviate significantly from the average in at least one way. So they made the gear adjustable, and that greatly improved performance and reduced mistakes. Why is it that in tech we are often told a seemingly contrary narrative -- that everything is better, or at…
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