Yes/No/Cancel

Lunchtime! Vegetables au gratin, not bad after all. In our factory canteen you can only pay cash. We’re nearly the last one. I know of a couple of lunchrooms who do accept only chip cards which you can charge on an automat. This may have some advancements (you don’t have to mess with loose change), but after all, it’s just one step more between me and my food, isn’t it?

Spending the afternoon might become a challenge. My boss cares for the first hour with an unexpected meeting. Meeting is just another word for the collective comparison of PDAs and laptops among my troglodyte colleagues (Me have bigger club. Me leader!). I earn some disbelieving looks and return them with a Yes-I-am-using-paper-and-a-pencil-because-I-have-everything-under-control-anyway expression. — Surprisingly, this works. Even that good that my boss assigns a task to me which was scheduled to someone else in the beginning. I would never have believed that one day ragged paper and an IKEA pencil could become insignia of superiority. Question is: What do they think I want to show that way? That I care for the really important things? That I have everything in mind?

I spend the rest of the day setting up an experiment which is mainly manual work and taking notes. My colleagues are wondering why I’m always coming around instead of using the telephone. This makes me wonder which one is more disturbing: The phone ringing or someone knocking on the door? As for me, the phone causes more stress because it gives you the impression of total urgency: If you don’t pick up the receiver immediately, it will stop ringing and you will miss something important. But once you have picked up, you must start the conversation. If someone comes around, I can tell him to wait for some thirty seconds without him running away again. What do you think?

Having finished breakfast, I need to pack my stuff. It feels somewhat strange not to pack in the usual stuff like the mobile phone and the MP3 player. (I even remove the LED lamp from my key ring.) On locking the door, it comes to me that once I was even planning to install some electronic house access system which would render the house key obsolete. But it turned out that there is no fall-back system in case of a power cut. Who invents such a bullshit?

In the bus to work I have to show my monthly ticket to the conductor. I have to admit the ticket has an integrated chip, but that one is used on a self-service station only, not for daily routines. I guess we can turn a blind eye to that. But I know that some other bus companies give out smart cards which you have to check on a sensor on entering the bus. Luckily, mine hasn’t started that sort of stuff. Anyway, I could buy a single ticket which is printed on paper (by a onboard computer, sadly), paying with loose change. Dodging the fare is not advisable today because the controllers use some sort of handheld computers where they would enter my data, requiring me to subscribe with a digital pen on a touchpad.

While entering my workplace, I realized that usually I would have to check in - using a smart card again. Good thing is, we are allowed to note down the time as an alternative, if the check-in does not work or we’re working abroad. Today I declare it as ‘not working’, period. And now things are getting tricky: What do you do all day long if you are usually working on a computer or in a lab with high-tech equipment? First thing I do is to tidy up my desk and file away piles of old papers. This keeps me busy for about an hour and a half and leaves me with a certain good feeling and a blank desk. But there are at least two hours left until lunch break. Perfect time for the reading of some papers about my next task. I printed them the day before since after all paper is friendlier to read and easier to highlight. You see, I’m cheating again: It’s not like I’m not using computers at all, It’s just that I planned carefully to avoid computers today, having prepared for that before.

All the time I’m happy the phone doesn’t ring, because it is - you may guess already - some high-integrated Voice-over-IP-based digital telephone system bling bling. I am certain my phone possesses more computing power than the machines which controlled the first space flight. Only for comparison: The first working prototype of a telephone was constructed in 1861, and one of the first ever transferred sentences was “Das Pferd frißt keinen Gurkensalat” (The horse doesn’t eat any cucumber salad). Which has about the same amount of meaning as what usually comes out of my phone receiver.

Since it is Lent now, our roman-catholic friends are doing without meat for 40 days. I am protestant and vegetarian anyway, so this does not really mean much to me. Anyway, some of them asked me if I would also forswear something for that time. I usually answered that I’m trying to pass the days without golfing. This is not a great relinquishment since I’m not golfing anyway, but it usually leaves them sufficiently impressed.

But all that made me think of one thing: Would it be possible to spend at least one day without computers, integrated circuits, digital devices and all that? Let’s think it through. I use the following rule: I may not use any semiconductor-operated device at all. Other electric devices will do ok, although I will try to avoid them. Also I will let others use digital devices for me. You may call that cheating, but I can only control myself, not others as well, and I cannot entirely shut down public life.

First, I would have to replace my radio controlled alarm clock by some good old mechanical device. And there’s the first drawback: I can impossibly sleep with a ticking clock around. Of course, I might wrap it in lots of fabric, but then its ringing will also be muffled. Not good. Also I would have to rewind it from time to time, but that’s a minor problem - at least if it doesn’t stop in the middle of the night, which according to Murphy’s Law it will do the nights before important meetings and stuff. But my digital clock once let me down also, because I failed to program not only the time but also the weekday. (Let’s call that a draw.)

Luckily my bathroom works on a somewhat hydraulic base, I even switched back to shaving foam some years ago since the electric razor broke and left me half-bearded one morning. But on the breakfast table I am unsure again about whether toasters and coffee machines are usually IC-controlled or not. On closer examination, the toaster has a simple bi-metal control, so I can use it safely. About the coffee machine, I still don’t know, so I decide to postpone the coffee to when I am at work. (The machine there is certainly not under digital control, and even if it would be: it’s usually my roommate who’s handling it because in earlier times I never got the amount of coffee powder right. But that’s another story.) Looking around in the kitchen, I notice that nearly all devices have at least an LCD display which means there are semiconductors at work. Well, except for the fridge which is that old it’s even strange it works on electricity and not on steam power. By its energy consumption and noise radiation, it wasn’t invented long after that. Usually this annoys me but this morning I even feel something like gratitude. Good old fridge.

Note to self: Replace it.

We received a phone book. It appeared on our doorstep. It was heavy and printed on paper and wrapped in plastic.

I looked at it like someone from a different planet. I hadn’t touched a phone book in years! Why on earth would somebody still want one?

My friends all have mobile phones, not landlines; and I have their numbers stored in my phone anyway, so I don’t need to look them up. For business contacts I have their business cards, which I store in a contact management database, which is also easily searchable. And if for some reason I don’t have somebody’s number, I would look it up in an online phone book which contains all people in the whole of the UK, not just Cambridge.

When I have children, they will probably fail to grasp why anybody could have possibly wanted a big heavy book with their neighbours’ phone numbers. And I will feel like someone from the middle ages because I still remember using them (back in the day when it took 2 minutes to connect to the internet by modem, so it was actually faster to use the paper phonebook). And hey, I’m 24 — how are my parents’ generation going to feel?

But then, take a step back. Why are they still distributing paper phone books for free? Because there are still many, many people who do not have internet access. Many millions in the UK — and outside the industrialised world it’s the vast majority of people. That online oxygen which I take so completely for granted, it’s not actually as omnipresent as I would like to think.

The internet has completely changed the world, I can hardly repeat it often enough — it is the same kind of massive shake-up as the industrial revolution or the invention of the printing press. But we who are involved in making that technology must not forget about those people who lack internet access. There is a divide between those who are part of the communication and democratisation which the internet is bringing, and those who are “digitally excluded”. We must not forget them, and we must do our best to get everybody online, anywhere on the planet, by making technology accessible, usable, and affordable.

Someone put a lot of money, time and effort into printing that phone book. Although it probably didn’t require a tree to be felled, it has still consumed a lot of recycled paper. I would have felt bad to put it in the recycling immediately, even though I know that we are never going to use it. So I stripped off the plastic wrapper and placed the book carefully in the drawer under the living room table. Last year’s phone book was there too, just as unused. At least now, the two phone books can keep each other company.

In this first article of the “power-off” series, I shed light on how we interact with low-tech equipment — in this case, a kitchen stove. Considering that this device has only five knobs and no electronics, it exhibits some surprising usability problems!

It’s Friday today, and since everybody likes to slow down and take a step back from their work on Fridays, I will designate Friday to be the power-off day in the Yes/No/Cancel magazine. It’s the day to switch off the computer and look at things beyond it. As a computing professional, you occasionally forget about the real world around you!

(Ironically, I’m still using my computer to write this article and you are using yours to read it. So it’s hardly sticking to the spirit of “power-off”… but how about this: If you want to really go for the whole non-electronic experience, give me your address and I’ll post you the power-off article every Friday. Yes, on paper. How about that? Shocking, eh?)

Today’s topic is the gas cooker at my home in Cambridge. And no, that’s not such a lame topic as you may think. This is a device which I interact with pretty much every day, and it is therefore important that I feel comfortable using it.

Here is a photo of it — click it for a larger picture. (I specially cleaned the cooker for this photo!) Very simple device: four hobs, one knob to control each of them, and a button to trigger an electric spark which ignites the gas. What could possibly be wrong with it?

My main problem with this cooker is that I never know which of the four knobs controls which of the hobs. Ok, the front two knobs are for the front two hobs and the rear two knobs are for the rear two hobs. But amongst these, which is which?

The only way of knowing is to look at the tiny diagram beside each knob. And the diagram is inconveniently placed such that it is hidden behind the knob if you are standing in front of the cooker! You therefore have to lean over in order to see the label. I generally cannot be bothered to do this, so I just try one of the two possibilities at random. And I generally get it wrong. And I get annoyed with the cooker. Call me lazy, call me a slow learner, the end effect is still that I’m annoyed. (Hey, I cook for myself from basic ingredients, I can’t be that lazy.)

The solution would be to arrange the knobs in such a fashion that it is immediately clear which one controls which of the hobs. The easiest way of doing that is to arrange them in a square, rather than in a straight line; however that might be impractical as the cooker would have to be wider. So this is my suggestion, an arrangement which is unambiguous but requires hardly any additional space:

(Comments on whether it is more aesthetically pleasing are welcome.)

I’ve not finished yet. The next thing I want to mention is a bizarre feature which seems to be common to gas cookers. (I grew up with electric cookers, so this is a bit new to me.) Here is a picture of one of the knobs. The arrow points to the right, which is its “off” setting. To turn on the gas, you turn the knob anticlockwise. Two things I find bizarre:

• In all other devices I can think of, turning the knob as far as possible anticlockwise turns it off (the “leftmost” position). Here you need to go as far as possible clockwise.
• When you gradually turn the knob away from the “off” position, you suddenly get the maximum flow of gas; then as you turn it further, it gradually decreases again. The small flame is furthest away from the “off” position, not closest as you may expect.

I’d be grateful for any explanation of why gas cookers work this way. My hypothesis had been that it’s good to get a strong flow of gas first thing after turning on, so that the spark will cause it to ignite quickly. Only today when taking the photo did I notice the little spark symbol next to the little flame. This suggests that you’re actually supposed to turn the knob all the way round to the little flame for ignition — that completely messes up my theory. Any other ideas?

I must say though, the strange behaviour of the knob doesn’t irritate me, as I’ve got used to that. The arrangement of the knobs does though. And in two weeks I’ll be moving house, so I’m going to have to start all over again getting to know my cooker.