Tag: binary

The problem is simple answers to difficult questions?

Swipe left or swipe right… why not?

More and more the answers are getting more simplistic. There was something Douglas Ruskoff said recently in a chat while talking about present shock.

Its also something I’ve been thinking about, especially since installing Bumble and Plenty of Fish daring apps. Every dating app now includes the hot or not/swipe left or right mechanism; this for me is a bad thing…. I’m not the only one of course.

In the September issue of Vanity Fair, Nancy Jo Sales wrote an in -depth piece called, Tinder and the Dawn of “Dating Apocalypse.” It’s an eye-opener and validation of a woman’s worst fear. The guys are swiping right to hook up and it’s all just a game.

In the story, it’s reported that 100 million people are using mobile apps, with about 50 million on Tinder. The Tinder blog reports 25 million matches a day. The numbers are mind-boggling and enormous.

The VF story is really about sex and hookups. Mobile apps just happen to ramp up the numbers in a digital second, and singles in their 20s are buying into the hooking up program, I believe which ruins their chance at romance.

I of course wrote about the tinder breakdown here. But I find the pattern/ui decision/culture a little disturbing. I did look under dark patterns to see if it was included but couldn’t find it.  Maybe I should submit it?

Swipe Left

Whats wrong with the swipe? Don’t be a hater… I hear you say…

I boil it down to simplification of questions to a binary output/decision. Thinking like a computer...

Conrad Wolfram delivered a good talk at Thinking Digital around the exact same thing. I’ve said it a many times before but I’ll say it again, I do wonder/worry that the digital revolution seems to be driven by one group of people who may think alike and seem more comfortable with binary decisions that the fuzziness of reality.

In today’s touchscreen world, a “swipe right” is a quick, positive way to communicate interest. Alternately, a “swipe left” is the swiftest way reject something or someone. Whether it’s picking a date on Tinder or choosing a dress on Pinterest, technology brings immediate gratification to so many aspects of our lives.

This blog by nehrlich caught my eye which is somewhat related. The world is fuzzy and building up systems to block out the fuzz is in my opinion not great. We need to embrace the fuzz along side the binary.

I’ll say it again… diversity of people and thought just like nature.

Reducing a decision about something as fuzzy as a potential partner does irk me. Do I like the person in front of me or not?

Yes or No. In or Out, One or Zero.

No sense of maybe… Make a decision now….!

Plus you can’t move forward or go back. Its some seriously dark user interface voodoo. It seems so playful and fun but under the gamification there is something dark happening…. and its spreading like wildfire! This is certainly something which chimes against my new years resolution around thinking humanity…

After 3 hours of swiping right on Tinder

Which leads headlong into the “I want it now, instant gratification, etc culture…” but I’m feeling too happy for that right now.

ASCII vs Binary

Ben Metcalfe writes in response to Brad Templeton's post.

At the blogger panel at Fall VON … Vlogger and blip.tv advocate Dina Kaplan asked bloggers to start vlogging. Its started a minor debate.

My take? Please dont.

Ive written before on what I call the reader-friendly vs. writer-friendly dichotomy. My thesis is that media make choices about where to be on that spectrum, though ideal technology reduces the compromises

Brad actually goes on to advocate podcasting as an acceptable format as it can be listened to whilst jogging, etc. I think hes correct to a degree – podcasting is certainly easier to consume than video/vlogging as it is a multitaskable medium (unlike blogging too). However its still binary – it still requires you to consume at a pace decided by the producer and its far harder to index and search through. Unless it contains a meta-wrapper, there is also no hyperlinking which is arguably one of the greatest keys to the world-wide-webs success.
Its for this reason that Ive been sceptical as to the long-term success of podcasting as an informational medium. And this scepticism certainly extends to vlogging.

My take is that ascii is great but you know what, how bland would the world be if people couldn't express themselves in any form they feel most comfitable? See Ben is taking the reciever (user) point of view and I think thats fine for a lot of people. Even myself, I blog more that I podcast or videocast because I like hyperlinking. But it would be wrong for me to expect everyone to do the same. If podcasting works for you, hey go for it. Yes think about your audience you certainly need to balance that with your own creativity. So in the end I do agree with Ben's final point.

However I think most people would agree that we need to produce work in the format thats right for the content at hand, and for the end consumer whos going to consume it. For the moment at least, I think most people still use the blogosphere more for informational use than they do entertainment and as such that needs to be considered when youre about to produce your next blog/podcast/vlog

Ideally binary searching, scanning, deconstruction would be as easy as acsii but its not at the moment. I think this is mainly a limitation of the tools and services out there. The service and tool creators blame the lack of standards. So the question is where is the microformats of the media? I would have suggested Mpeg4 could have been but its got so screwed up who knows.

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