Mastodawn

Steve Mar 10, 2025

Edge-case marketing

Edge-case marketing - awful.systems

Another video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzUNy90ghWw] / audio [https://pnc.st/s/faster-and-worse/fe4f7cce/edge-case-marketing] / thread [https://hci.social/@fasterandworse/114139222324586367] from me This time it’s about products that are marketed with purposes they can’t be optimised for. ---------- In the production of a tech product an “edge case” is seen as a hindrance to delivering on the core purpose of the product. For marketing an “edge case” can be seen as an opportunity to exploit a purpose that the product was not designed for and will never be optimised to satisfy. When a general purpose product uses an edge case as the subject of its marketing it ignores the other aspects of the product which, for that niche purpose, will be on a spectrum from irrelevance to interference. A product capable of servicing a niche purpose is not the same as a product designed to specifically satisfy that niche purpose. Only the latter will be developed with continual effort to further satisfy the purpose as effectively as possible. The more general purpose a product is, the more perceived edge cases it has. Every edge case is a candidate for edge-case marketing which exploits the virtues of serving that niche in order to sell the entire product along with everything else it includes.

Steve Mar 3, 2025

Me ranting about software being a material, really, not a product category in itself

https://awful.systems/post/3668705

Me ranting about software being a material, really, not a product category in itself - awful.systems

I didn’t think this is techtakesworthy, nor is it a sneer, more a airing of perspective, as wanky as that sounds The gist: Software, or generally computation, can be categorised as a type of building material rather than a type of product in itself. This framing opens up the view that design within the software industry begins with an assumption that software was the best means for the supposed purpose. Foundationally, design is the deliberation over the best means to satisfy a given purpose. In reality most design projects begin with limitations to the means available. Regardless, the knowledge that software is one of many possible means should not be ignored. To accept “software is eating the world” as a positive movement is to skip the most important choice of any design process. The means that best satisfies the given purpose at that point in time. The same ignorance of that choice led to plastic eating the world as well. The means for satisfying a purpose are not limited to building materials. It can be any effort that influences a situation rather than building a thing, physical or virtual. The goal is to have as open a design process as possible to allow for the most appropriate means to be discovered.

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Steve Feb 28, 2025

Just to add, this video doesn’t say much about the actual idea in detail. I have plenty more to say about that. It is more philosophical groundwork to lead into an upcoming video about the thing itself

Steve Feb 28, 2025

A video I made about "do less" tech products that should have been software for obsoleted hardware

https://awful.systems/post/3645774

A video I made about "do less" tech products that should have been software for obsoleted hardware - awful.systems

vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbw1GlyzNu4 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbw1GlyzNu4] audio only/podcast version: https://pnc.st/s/faster-and-worse/6d394145/do-less-products [https://pnc.st/s/faster-and-worse/6d394145/do-less-products] I talk about an idea I’ve been throwing around for a while for a “typewriter OS” which boots an old laptop into text editor (as a starting project to hopefully lead to a [insert single purpose] OS) It’s a difficult thing to pitch because it’s very easy to say “that’s just X running Y” type of answers. But it’s something I see as a ground up build by design. Anyway, sharing to see if it piques anyone’s interest

Steve Nov 9, 2024

The incongruence of the designed and the designer

https://awful.systems/post/2807367

The incongruence of the designed and the designer - awful.systems

I just published this on our new WriteFreely instance. It’s a write-directly-into-the-cms-and-hit-publish job that took an hour. It’s about the difference between the purpose of a thing and the purpose of the ux designers who work on that thing. P.S. I skim proof read it. So expect weird gibberish (ha)

Steve Sep 29, 2024

Building his own CCD full-frame mirrorless camera

https://awful.systems/post/2498109

Building his own CCD full-frame mirrorless camera - awful.systems

invidious link https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=OkfzjmY9cF8 [https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=OkfzjmY9cF8] He has sample photos starting around 12 minute mark - the colour tone he’s getting is amazing Example: Colour photo of piled up old computers and computer peripherals from the grey/beige era. The colours are muted but not completely desaturated. It resembles film more than the average post-processed digital photo [https://awful.systems/pictrs/image/0a042ab1-27f5-431d-9562-312fc4c2cd32.png]

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Steve Sep 20, 2024

not provocative enough, i see

Steve Sep 15, 2024

provocation: innovation can't be stifled because innovation is a response to stifles (constraints)

https://awful.systems/post/2388055

provocation: innovation can't be stifled because innovation is a response to stifles (constraints) - awful.systems

I just want to share a little piece of this provocation, but would like to know how compelling it sounds? I’ve been sitting on it for a while and starting to think its probably not earning that much space in words. The overarching point is that anyone who complains about constraints imposed on them as being constraints in general either isn’t making something purposeful enough to concretely challenge the constraints or isn’t actually designing because they haven’t done the hard work of understanding the constraints between them and their purpose. Anyway, this is a snippet from a longer piece which leads to a point that the scumbags didn’t take over, but instead the environment evolved to create the perfect habitat for scumbags who want to make money from providing as little value as possible: > The constraints of taking up space > Software was once sold on physical media packaged in boxes that were displayed with price tags on shelves alongside competing products in brick and mortar stores. > Limited shelf space stifled software makers into making products innovative enough to earn that shelf space. > The box that packaged the product stifled software makers into having a concrete purpose for their product which would compel more interest than the boxes beside it. > The price tag stifled software makers into ensuring that the product does everything it says on the box. > The installation media stifled software makers into making sure their product was complete and would function. > The need to install that software, completely, on the buyer’s computer stifled the software makers further into delivering on the promises of their product. > The pre-broadband era stifled software makers into ensuring that any updates justified the time and effort it would take to get the bits down the pipe. > But then… > Connectivity speeds increased, and always-on broadband connectivity became widespread. Boxes and installation media were replaced by online purchases and software downloads. > Automatic updates reduced the importance of version numbers. Major releases which marked a haul of improvements significant enough to consider it a new product became less significant. The concept of completeness in software was being replaced by iterative improvements. A constant state of becoming. > The Web matured with advancements in CSS and Javascript. Web sites made way for Web apps. Installation via downloads was replaced by Software-as-a-service. It’s all on a web server, not taking up any space on your computer’s internal storage. > Software as a service instead of a product replaced the up-front price tag with the subscription model. > …and here we are. All of the aspects of software products that take up space, whether that be in a store, in your home, on your hard disk, or in your bank account, are gone.

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Steve Jul 20, 2024

“it is providing Microsoft non-exclusive access to advanced learning content and data to help improve relevance and performance of AI systems”.

I wish it wasn’t normal to call these “systems” instead of “products”

Steve Jul 20, 2024

Academic authors 'shocked' after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI

https://awful.systems/post/1944781

Academic authors 'shocked' after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI - awful.systems

> Authors have expressed their shock after the news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) partnership with Microsoft—a deal worth almost £8m ($10m) in its first year. On top of it all, that is such a low-ball number from Microsoft > The agreement with Microsoft was included in a trading update by the publisher’s parent company in May this year. However, academics published by the group claim they have not been told about the AI deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out and are receiving no extra payment for the use of their research by the tech company.