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Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

worrydream.com

1–10 of 79 posts

Re: Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

#2
How inspiring it is that Bret Victor diligently designs the presentation of his content: to me this is one of the reasons he's apart from others, where often even a great design thinker simply leaves a talk or slides or an essay to be presented however it will, like a philosopher who sets aside her inquisitive attitude in real life.

Re: Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

#7
I'm a big fan of Bret Victor's thinking, but this part struck me as indicative of the criticisms he'll receive:

"here, they are discussing some relationships: the regular latice, L grows linearly with n, we see L growing linearly with n, and we see C is staying constant. In the random network, L grows logarithmically, and we see L growing logarithmically, we see C going as a reciprocal relationship. When we read the word "logarithmic", we don't need to reconstruct that relationship in our head, you can just see it"

Does the average reader of Nature need to be shown a graph of what a linear, constant, logarithmic, and inverse relationship looks like? I don't think so.

That said, I imagine there are highly terse and technical ideas that cannot be simply represented in the current mediums of publication and which could benefit greatly using a presentation using an interactive widgets, making more complex ideas more easily communicable.

Re: Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

#8

I'm a big fan of Bret Victor's thinking, but this part struck me as indicative of the criticisms he'll receive: "here, they are discussing some relationships: the regular latice, L grows linearly with n, we see L growing linearly with n, and we see C is staying constant. In the random network, L grows logarithmically, and we see L growing logarithmically, we see C going as a reciprocal relationship. When we read the…

The average reader can probably easily imagine y=2 to y=2x to y=X^2 relationship, but its becomes harder when the rates change. Visualizing y=N to y=Nx to y=x^N where N is any given number is fairly hard to see accurately in my head since it adds a new dimension (time) to the visualization.

Giving a slider where N can be visualized over time shows how changes in N accelerates y=x^N away y=Nx. These compound complexities better seen in interactive widget as the average mind is not well equipped to visualize them.

Re: Media for Thinking the Unthinkable

#10

I'm a big fan of Bret Victor's thinking, but this part struck me as indicative of the criticisms he'll receive: "here, they are discussing some relationships: the regular latice, L grows linearly with n, we see L growing linearly with n, and we see C is staying constant. In the random network, L grows logarithmically, and we see L growing logarithmically, we see C going as a reciprocal relationship. When we read the…

When introducing a new visualization, First you show familiar curves such as y=x and y=x^2 as context for more complex curves that follow.
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