Translating Alien Languages
Nancy Lebovitz
>On 29 Nov 2002 04:01:58 GMT, gor...@elaine.furryape.com (Alan
>Barclay) wrote:
>
>Ahhh, human factors and cultural imperatives! I remember that class
>with fondness, because it pointed out the things that we take for
>granted and the trouble you get into when you violate them. For
>example, in your normal everyday switch, up means on, and down means
>off. What happens to that when you get into a spaceship where "up"
>and "down" may not be so obvious? (Apparently, most writers go to
>voice activated lights, but that's cheating!) You'd be amazed at the
>number of really bad things that happened because someone coded
>controls in a way that was counter-intuitive to the user. One that I
>remember involved new fighter jets, where they had several fatal
>crashes. They finally figured out that the pilots were moving the
>engine cooling control to the left when they wanted to cool down the
>engines. They were thinking left = cold, but the control was actually
>regulating the amount of coolant supplied to the engine, with left =
>less.
>
>Now I am curious if there is any SF that discusses this kind of thing.
>
There was a Golden Age story about spaceships which were so difficult
to pilot that the captain's controls had to be perfectly optimized for
him. As might be expected, the story gets a captain into a situation
where he has to use non-optimized controls, and the solution is to
bash them into a barely usable configuration, and using a mixture
of spare cans of paint to get the cabin walls to be approximately the
right color. Anyone remember author/title?
On the ergonomics side, one of Busby's Rissa Kerguellen novels had
a captain redesigning controls, with an implication that anyone with
less status would be stuck with standard controls.
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com
Now, with bumper stickers
Using your turn signal is not "giving information to the enemy"
J.B. Moreno
> There was a Golden Age story about spaceships which were so difficult
> to pilot that the captain's controls had to be perfectly optimized for
> him. As might be expected, the story gets a captain into a situation
> where he has to use non-optimized controls, and the solution is to
> bash them into a barely usable configuration, and using a mixture
> of spare cans of paint to get the cabin walls to be approximately the
> right color. Anyone remember author/title?
I'm pretty sure that's Alan Nourse -- I've certainly got it (it has them
putting in stuff that doesn't work and won't be used, just so it lookis
right and everything is in the right place). I'm not sure about the
title.
It's just barely possible that the story is by White, but I don't think
so.
--
JBM
"Your depression will be added to my own" -- Marvin of Borg
rmtodd
I'm fairly certain it *is* by James White, and is one of the stories in the
_Futures Past_ collection.
J.B. Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) writes:
-snip-
> > It's just barely possible that the story is by White, but I don't think
> > so.
>
> I'm fairly certain it *is* by James White, and is one of the stories in the
> _Futures Past_ collection.
OK, but when I claimed to be infallible I lied, so being wrong doesn't
bother me.
Mark 'Kamikaze' Hughes
> On the ergonomics side, one of Busby's Rissa Kerguellen novels had
> a captain redesigning controls, with an implication that anyone with
> less status would be stuck with standard controls.
There's considerable bitching in _A Deepness in the Sky_ about the
Emergents taking away the Qeng Ho's HUD visors with their customized
interfaces, and replacing them with crappy Emergent tech. Pham Trinli's
user interface seems like it would require an inhuman amount of training
to use, but perhaps not.
In the real world, anyone who hasn't used the Opera browser since
version 6 should do so, and try out the "mouse gestures". By doing a
right-click-and-drag-left on the page, it goes back. Drag-right goes
forward. Drag-down-up duplicates the page... And there's more.
You use that for about 10 minutes, and you're hooked. I'm crippled
when forced to use Netscape now--I actually have to move the mouse all
the way to the back button and click on that. How primitive.
--
<a href="http://kuoi.asui.uidaho.edu/~kamikaze/"> Mark Hughes </a>
"We remain convinced that this is the best defensive posture to adopt in
order to minimize casualties when the Great Old Ones return from beyond
the stars to eat our brains." -Charlie Stross, _The Concrete Jungle_
Martin Wisse
'Kamikaze' Hughes) wrote:
> In the real world, anyone who hasn't used the Opera browser since
>version 6 should do so, and try out the "mouse gestures". By doing a
>right-click-and-drag-left on the page, it goes back. Drag-right goes
>forward. Drag-down-up duplicates the page... And there's more.
>
> You use that for about 10 minutes, and you're hooked. I'm crippled
>when forced to use Netscape now--I actually have to move the mouse all
>the way to the back button and click on that. How primitive.
*snort*
Backspace is Your Friend.
Who needs a mouse?
Obsf: What would be the most ridiculous computer system in science
fiction, looks cool but would be a bitch to operate? Written only, as
movies are too easy.
Martin Wisse
--
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is
about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion,
English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious
and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. --James Nicoll, rasseff
Karl M Syring
>
> Obsf: What would be the most ridiculous computer system in science
> fiction, looks cool but would be a bitch to operate? Written only, as
> movies are too easy.
Providing the computing elements with a toilet in a distant
star system should count. Thus I nominate Simmon's _Hyperion_
et sequels.
Karl M. Syring