There Are Unused Icons On Your Desktop
Every so often I'm greeted by this message when I boot up my notebook computer. At times it's annoying, at times just one of those things to be "clicked away." This morning, for reasons unknown even now, it struck me as a metaphor. A metaphor for what? Not sure just yet. Life. Beliefs. Tradition. Attitude...
Perhaps my desktop does have too many unused or otherwise unhelpful icons. The desktop on my computer screen is a metaphor the desktop on my desk... I get that. But it's also a metaphor for the way I live my life. A field of pixels that is a graphic representation of the activities I engage in during my day. Is it organized? Cluttered, or empty? Pleasing or just sad?
And what of the "cognitive field" that represents my own internal perception of the life I've lived and the world around me? Is it beautiful, or ugly? Continuous or pockmarked with holes caused by missed opportunities, or memories ravaged by time? Is it an image that I'd want to reproduce on canvas or the written page?
Perhaps we need a little pop-up reminder for ourselves. Are there unused icons that represent the "found knowledge" we've accreted and aggregated over time, without ever questioning whether it was valid? Perhaps a periodic purge is in order, though I suspect it will require more than a simple click of a button to rid our attitudes of some the more firmly entrenched icons in our minds.
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Comments: 24
Okay, so maybe I needed it. And maybe you are psychic and know I had similar thoughts just last night when someone pulled up an old story and reminded me that I've changed the way I write to suit Gather, and that's a terrible waste.
Thanks to you, Elsie Duggan, and Johnny 5000 (an old comment), I am going to pay more attention to my unused icons. I think there's a better chance I need to use some of them than that I need to purge them.
I'd like to be running a minimal version of Linux, myself. Instead, I think I do my mental programming in RPG (joke, programmers, for the use of...)
Exactly! I prefer to flatter myself by assuming that the idle potential is untapped instead of useless ;-)
Some call it delusional; I say it's what makes life fun.
How that applies to your philosophical analogy I'm not sure. I've only had one cup of coffee so far.
perhaps it would do better to say something like "there are unpaid bills sitting on your desk" or "
as i was saying perhaps it should say "there are unused food items rotting in your fridge"
that would be more helpful.
I've been programming in RPG for over 15 years. I'm not sure if it harmed me or not. Actually it's looked like a normal computer language for the last 10 years or so. RPG from before 1995 looked like serious gibberish. It always looked that way to me too. Here's an example of old school RPG. It's saying x = 2 + 2:
2 ADD 2 X
There's a thin line between using unused icons and not using them. I sleep a lot better knowing that they are there as opposed to wondering what could happen if they were to disappear.
I guess this a reflection of my insecurities when it comes to icons, MicroSoft and Windows in general.
Wow! Glad to get that off my chest.
Icons are all about insecurities, Lloyd. We look for strength in something that is a representation of that which simplifies the process for us. Why think when we can just click a button? (Or just fall back on an ideology that felt right at some point in the past, so why question it now?)
I think I'm working my way into an infinite metaphorical "do loop"... I'll have to wait for the timeout function to trigger an override. I'm so so glad there aren't "unpaid bill" reminders built into that process! I'll check back from the other side. Til then, like Aniko, only coffee can save me...
Lloyd, I still have my unused icons--I just put them in a detention camp so they're out of sight. I can set them free if I want to...
Aniko, you're cracking me up! I would never have thought of it that way. But, yeah I guess it's kind of like sending them into exile until you're ready to forgive them their uselessness...
Great post Mark.
I was a pre-1995 RPGer. And it drove me crazy because I was on the AS/400 which has the world's best COBOL. OK, now I'm dating myself.
Beats dating most of the guys I know...
As to the icons. They're the map, not the territory. Delete at will. Or hold them in your own private Guantanamo and force them wander your desktop naked. Whatever.
RPG is more commonly used to stand for Role Playing Game. The programming language name is short for Report Program Generator, I think. IBM had an acronym culture. They even had "TLA" which stood for "three letter acronym."
Examples include: "TDF" for "travel demand forecasting", "TIA" for "traffic impact analysis", "TDM" for "travel demand management" (which truly is equivalent to "tedium" by the way) etc. Then, of course, there's the well known Five letter genre, such as "NIMBY" for "Not In My Back Yard", ISTEA for "Intermodal Surface Transporation Efficiency Act" (intermodal meaning a coordination of modes such as autos, buses, trains, bicycles and pedestrians) and "HOTEA" for "Highway Only Transportation Efficiency Act." (Note: This was not a real program, just an inside joke to represent the change in philosophy under the Republican controlled congress, which was considerably less friendly to mass transit funding.)
I remember COBOL from the 70's... mostly I remember the hassle of placing a five or six digit instruction number at the beginning of each line of code! In the days of punch cards this was performed manually, which really puts things in perspective! Manually entering a six digit code, that was typically incremented by a standard increment, for input into a computer! What is wrong with THAT picture!
That's the message *I'M* most afraid of seeing someday. I mean, I know it's true and I know it's way the hell more than "cells" ... but I don't want the reminder.