Re: Feeling lost without tabs

[Emanuel Berg]

Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:

> If anyone does this please post a photo! :-)

I got the idea from this music video from the 90's, the
German Eurodisco band Sash. Of course, having the
keyboards hang in chains are optional...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEsMhxDVVOk

> Yes.  But at some point the brain can become
> overloaded.  I have some ham radios that have had
> feature creep to the point that they are no longer
> possible to be operated without the manual open
> beside them.  That is bad.  Was it left function,
> right function, then action button?  Or was it push
> and hold left function 1s until beep, then action
> button?  Or right function hold 1s, left function,
> then action?  I have truly awful "computerized" radio
> like that.  Others with less features are more usable
> because sometimes you don't have the manual in front
> of you.

Fatigue is of course a big source of such
"biomechanical" mistakes. At that point you should
probably have a break. At the same time if you have too
much material in your brain you might think fumbling
and stumbling is OK just so the thing gets done, then
the break will be all the more enjoyable as you can
feel good and let all that dissappear completely.

> Actually no.  I am a general aviation pilot (not a
> fighter pilot, I fly taildragges) but the concept for
> fighters is HOTAS.  Hands On Throttle-And-Stick.  Put
> the switches you need on either the throttle or stick
> so they can be reached without removing hands from
> the flight controls.
>
>   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOTAS
>
> Mostly when you do need to manipulate a switch not on
> either throttle or stick you keep one hand on the
> control stick, leave the throttle in the friction
> lock to hold it in place, and use the throttle hand
> to flip switches.  And especially with radios there
> is always a lot of fumbling.

So is there something we text-editor users can learn
from the pilots?

>> I remember a flight simulator for the Mac, F/A-18
>> Hornet. It took up almost the entire keyboard.
>
> Because the keyboard is a general purpose interface for
> human text it doesn't really make a good match to an
> airplane cockpit.  Meaning that it will be more
> complicated because there is a mapping from one to
> another.  The keys are binary.  Most flight controls
> are analog.

The stick and throttle are, I take it the movements are
recoded digitally at some point?

What about the data that are read by the pilots? Are
they typically analog or spelled out with letters and
digits? I think I would prefer analog, more smooth and
relaxed. In a text editor though I can't think of
anything that could be purposely expressed the "analog"
way?

> More and less.  When you are centered in the cockpit
> you can turn your head and look around and everything
> makes sense around you.  But in a game display this
> is difficult to achieve.  Plus the real aircraft
> includes feeling the movement in your seat which also
> gives you clues.  Perhaps it is more like flying an
> RC aircraft.

Interesting. This reminds my of an article I read in
the magazine "High Score". There was a Formula 1 game,
one of the first games for Windows 95, and for this
reason it got some attention. The game was nothing out
of the ordinary, I think. But anyway there was a
profession race car guy they had testing the game. He
said just like you the biggest difference was you get
zero information from your body. He said he didn't have
an advantage playing the game from being a professional
race car driver.

In another article in that magazine, but I think in
another issue, they did the same with a sailboat
simulator. They showed it to some Captain Haddock old
fart and asked if you could learn anything from it, and
he said absolutely not, you should do that in a real
boat. Well of course... problem is, kids don't sit
around boats all day as they do computers. If two kids
were to learn it I absolutely think the kid with the
experience from the simulator would have an advantage -
he would know the terminology, how to process the
instruments, he would have something to relate
(compare) to, and his brain would just have a head
start. Also, a simulator can run different
scenarios. Don't pilots train in simulators all the
time? Why shouldn't aspiring Haddocks do as well? All
said and done, nothing beats the real deal...

>> They say programmers often take to flying when they
>> get rich... (E.g., Woz, speaking of the accursed
>> Apple world.)
>
> When I get rich I will let you know.  Until then
> flying is one of the things keeping me poor.  But I
> wouldn't give up flying for money.  It is the other
> way around.

Configuring Emacs all they long and having the shell
tools and everything behave exactly as you like, and
then do the same to the place you are in while doing
it, tweaking everything, I think computing can be
physically and even more so mentally enjoyable - and it
is a huge difference from a busy office with crap
software and stressed out people running all over the
place - still, compared to what is instinctively and
immediately a joy for almost anyone who ever does it -
I'm not an aviator but to some degree I can imagine - I
don't think it will ever come to that... Mission
Impossible.

-- 
underground experts united