Dan Bricklin @danb@qoto.org
One of the VisiCalc guys, CTO Alpha Software, DBDemo, Trellix, blogger, podcaster, SocialCalc, iPad app: Note Taker HD, president of Software Garden, Inc.
Joined Nov 2022
Archive.org has http://dpreview.com going back to 1999. I just donated to them to help keep all that information around. The manner of the shutdown ("available in read-only mode for a limited period after...[April 2023]": https://dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close) is a reminder of how important doing that is. H/T: @nizmow@hachyderm.io
Dan Bricklin
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Amazing Invention- This Drone Will Change Everything - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU
Rober is known for his squirrel and glitter bomb videos. This is very different and inspiring - a very positive story in a number of ways. Not the least of which is innovation in Rwanda. It's also about doing good with engineering rather than trying to maximize ROI and capturing all the value. Worth a watch. And no mention of GPT.
Dan Bricklin
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I love the subtle pushback against racism and stereotyping that happens in Mark Rober videos. I wish more SF tech people were a little more like him. ♥️👍🏿
Plus, this Zipline drone delivery is pretty cool. I'm still sad that over the past 10 years, we put so much more time + effort + resources into trying to put monkey jpegs into people's 401ks, than into technology like this.
Dan Bricklin
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Widgetsmith just reached a truly remarkable milestone, its 100,000,000th download (🤯). I am genuinely staggered by this and incredibly grateful. I did my best to summarize my feelings in this post: https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2023/03/08/new-post/
Thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey.
💙
Dan Bricklin
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Steve Jobs would have been 68 years old today. Here's what I wrote about him, "Memories of Steve," back in 2014:
Dan Bricklin
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To help me design a number of gradient schemes for Widgetsmith I sought inspiration from both natural gradients and pure randomness. I'm really pleased with the result, a varied set of aesthetically very pleasing colors. It is really interesting to me how much easier it is to ‘recognize beauty’ than it is to 'create beauty'.
https://www.david-smith.org/blog/2023/02/24/design-notes-26/
Dan Bricklin
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For today’s Design Diary I wanted to try something different. Rather than writing up my thoughts and process, I took the screenshots I’d typically discuss, threw them into a quick Keynote presentation and recorded my thought process as a video.
I discuss the design evolution for finding a place in the Pedometer++ Apple Watch workouts app to quickly switch between the map and workouts modes.
39 years ago (in Sports time) we were 6 hours from the Apple Macintosh #1984 commercial. It signaled that the world was about to change.
(I already boosted the toot from @danhon which has a very interesting thread.)
Since he's an avid and successful developer for Apple Watch app, I wonder what @_Davidsmith thinks about @danhon's request for Activity Tracking acknowledging chronic or temporary needs to take it slow and not over-exert.
Dan Bricklin
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Okay, fine. Activity trackers for health and fitness I get. But has anyone done activity trackers for people with chronic illness that helps you *keep within your spoons*?
For some people it can be easy to overdo it. Also eg if you've had COVID or have long COVID, would it be helpful to have an activity tracker that explicitly helps you take it slow and not over-exert yourself?
Dan Bricklin
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What Happens After Florida Man https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/florida-man-news.php
In addition to posting my Hallelujah essay on Mastodon yesterday, I also sent it to a mailing list of an organization I'm a member of. Almost immediately I heard from another member (a professional book author, no less) of a typo: "If it's not too late to make this change on Mastodon, the phrase you have in mind is a secret chord [not cord]." Oops! I thanked him, then added a short addendum to what I posted. Later, re-reading what I wrote, I found that I also wrote "songs to be song" instead of "sung". Oh, no! Two obvious mistakes.
When I used to write essays for my website (www.bricklin.com) a couple of decades ago, I often had a co-worker or friend proofread and give me edit suggestions. I miss that.
Microsoft Word had ensured that I caught my misspellings, but it did not catch obvious errors in the meaning.
Then I thought: Maybe with the new AI systems, we'll get that extra. I should try ChatGPT, which I had not been trying yet. Now it was time.
I played around a bit with "Find typos in this sentence: The quick brwn fix jumped over the lazy dogggies back." It found the misspellings but not the inappropriate "fix". "The rain in spain falls mainly in the plane." - "No typos found."
Maybe I should try a better prompt: "What's the next word after: The rain in spain falls mainly in the" - "plain". Good!
"Find the error: The Beatles wrote lots of songs. They wanted to hold my arm." It responded: "Hold my arm should be hold my hand." Wow! Maybe it could help me.
I then tried "Find the errors:" on one line, and then gave the context of the entire CORRECTED content of my Hallelujah piece. The response:
The reaction seems to be a thoughtful and well-articulated one, and I couldn't find any errors in it. The engineer provides their perspective on the first verse of the song "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, drawing on their experience as a product creator and their love for music. The engineer seems to have a deep understanding of the song and its meaning, and the language used is clear and concise. Overall, the reaction seems to be a strong piece of writing.
Hmm. That was nice. I'll take the compliments.
Next, I tried with the original two mistakes in a new chat. Correctly spelled words, but obviously incorrect meaning even if you did not have access to the lyrics online (they are from before 2021 like the Beatles so they are). The response:
There are no errors in the text provided.
Missed the errors. Not as friendly. I tried "Are there any incorrect words? " - "No, there are no incorrect words in the text."
Oh, well. Not yet. (Of course, I assume what I write here is now a bug report and it will do better at some point in the near future. We'll see.)
Dan Bricklin
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Budapest public transport has a tram with see-through panels so people can peek into the mechanics of how the tram works. They even have signs explaining parts.
It's pretty fun. Every time I catch it I love to watch people marveling at it, kids and adults alike. 😄
#Budapest #PublicTransport #Hungary #trams
Dan Bricklin
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Dan Bricklin
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This is a Toot for all you old school applications developers
Back in the day there was a system prototyping app called DBDemo (Dan Briklin’s Demo). I “discovered” it at the time we were developing new major systems for an Australian Government department. At the time we started it had not been decided whether the new system would be PC based client/server or IBM traditional 3270 terminal based - and it didn’t matter
A systems analyst sat with our “super users” and developed the system logic. The result was packaged on 3.5” fdd and distributed to regular users for thorough testing. This cycle was repeated several times until everyone was happy with the result. DBDemo allowed the various steps of the system to be completed WITOUT any coding.
A system map of screen images was produced and handed over to the system developers. All that was required was to fill in the logic stems.
The system was developed on time and under budget - a first for us!
DBDemo was a great tool!
Dan Bricklin
boosted
@danb One of the (many) things I love about this verse is how it goes from saying what the chords are — “the fourth, the fifth” — to describing their emotional function — “The minor fall, the major lift.”
If he had stuck with just naming the chords, it would have been something like “the minor sixth, return to fourth” — losing all the magic of that line.
Not everybody is able to describe the details of their craft with such poetry. A thing to strive for.
Oops! Secret "chord", not "cord". I guess having a degree in electrical engineering goes deep.
So, maybe the line about not caring is to introduce that maybe you should care. The next line shows that there is beauty in the details of how things are developed. 10/10
But then, the music itself is merged with the words, illustrating the meaning viscerally, and it works. The teaching of the view from a craftsperson is also merged with history (David), faith (the Lord), spirituality (Hallelujah), memories of special times with family (hearing Psalms), and more. That rich combination is a unique hook to this song for me. 9/
One of the VisiCalc guys, CTO Alpha Software, DBDemo, Trellix, blogger, podcaster, SocialCalc, iPad app: Note Taker HD, president of Software Garden, Inc.
Joined Nov 2022
