Data visualization
category: general [glöplog]
jua, I don't have tufte's "visual display of quantitative information" but I have his later one, "Beautiful Evidence". It shows both good and bad examples with commentary.
There's an excellent piece of in it, a map showing the advance and retreat of napoleon in his russian campaign, both showing the casualties, temperature and the path they followed. It's very striking and conveys very well the folly of that campaign.
http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/re-minard.html
There's an excellent piece of in it, a map showing the advance and retreat of napoleon in his russian campaign, both showing the casualties, temperature and the path they followed. It's very striking and conveys very well the folly of that campaign.
http://www.math.yorku.ca/SCS/Gallery/re-minard.html
Hans Rosling's latest TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state.html
Here his free software: http://www.gapminder.org/
Here his free software: http://www.gapminder.org/
10/GUI
(lame music but their software looks quite promising! the HW idea is not really that new, of course)
(lame music but their software looks quite promising! the HW idea is not really that new, of course)
I'm not impressed! It sounded interesting when they pointed out all the problems of the current control paradigm, but when they started talking about "linear window management" I started thinking (eureka!). Isn't that really just essentially what you are doing with a task bar? Then they started showing the demo and they did things that you'd do more efficiently with a mouse., I don't think scrolling through a bunch of windows gets much easier than alt+tab, plus you can arrange windows however you want in a 2D window manager.
I have 16 windows open right now, and I'd really like not having to zoom out using some thumb-twisting maneuver or drag x number of fingers for ages to switch or move a window closer just because of some arbitrary ordering, when a much faster option is available 1 cm from where my left hand usually resides (alt+tab), or when they're usually arranged in a way that makes to most frequently used ones readily available and visible on the same screen.
I have 16 windows open right now, and I'd really like not having to zoom out using some thumb-twisting maneuver or drag x number of fingers for ages to switch or move a window closer just because of some arbitrary ordering, when a much faster option is available 1 cm from where my left hand usually resides (alt+tab), or when they're usually arranged in a way that makes to most frequently used ones readily available and visible on the same screen.
well, you still have alt-tab, as far as I understand their concept.
as a mouse replacement, this could really work well, I think.
the proposed hand gestures look quite intuitive to me.
let's not forget that these can be used for applications at well, not just the WM.
as others have pointed out, you could even use that touchpad as a mousepad with the right programming, or with a pen, for exact cursor placement.
personally, I'm not a big fan of the overlapping window paradigm. then again, I like WMs like ION ;)
as a mouse replacement, this could really work well, I think.
the proposed hand gestures look quite intuitive to me.
let's not forget that these can be used for applications at well, not just the WM.
as others have pointed out, you could even use that touchpad as a mousepad with the right programming, or with a pen, for exact cursor placement.
personally, I'm not a big fan of the overlapping window paradigm. then again, I like WMs like ION ;)
other criticism was that with a mouse, you don't have to scratch your hands directly on the pad. I'd probably want a glove with that 10/gui pad, with a small pen attached, so you can quickly switch between mouse-like input and gestures.
yea, it will probably never take off mainstream-wise but it's a cool thing for power users, I guess.
yea, it will probably never take off mainstream-wise but it's a cool thing for power users, I guess.