Cataloguing the Different Ways the Mind Associates Itself with the Outliner Presented Screen

Posted by Foolness
Sep 10, 2012 at 08:03 AM

For that idea to hold true to majority of potential lessons, there would have been a vast learning curve difference between those who try out demo versions of software to those who simply read the tutorial.

In fact, any person can easily see that when it comes to a more complicated task like say…learning a Linux distro… neither the example (a Live CD) nor the tutorial helps the learner nor does the learner who want to try a Linux immediately care for a Live CD.

In terms of pure mob demand, it is even possible to say that the words “Ubuntu” have more power in making Linux users want to try Linux first than the availability of examples.

The theory of a hammer is an interesting statement. Not just because what you say is true but of how it relates to outliners.

Have you considered that the reason for the lack of interest might be due to the mass availability of such an item and the equally as vast application of the hammer?

You say people buy tools to use as tools but that is a natural cognitive dissonance that occurs in an abundance mindset. No different than to have the view that people buy rice to eat without the historical context of say frankenfoods. Especially among poor people. The ones who have to acquire any food at the cheapest and most abundant amount possible in order to survive.

In fact in many areas, the idea of rice is still not an economic item but a way for parents to guilt children into eating them because they are “wasting the hard work of their fellow human farmers”.

...but wait a minute, there’s a thought. Rice in all it’s abundance is not bought as a tool for survival at all. In fact most foods aren’t. Why, I thought people buy tools to use as tools? Surely food is merely a tool for sustenance. Or isn’t it?

Outliners as tools are neither rice nor hammer. Construction wise, the philosophy is still very unstable if not a vastly ignored subject at all. Ease of production wise, only those who can code can create outliners and among those coders, it takes an even higher level of talent and dedication to even continue caring about the output of the software beyond simple outlines. Finally, among those only a few are brave enough to drop a flawed software they have already developed.

Users’ limited time are irrelevant compared to such general technological adoption barriers. These are the stuff usability guides, coding designs and mass marketing are constantly theory crash testing.

A person who have a limited time may stop to help an old lady cross the street or may drop their jobs altogether to open up more time for something more worthwhile. Even in reverse wherein we witness a person not wasting their limited time on someone, there are situations where culture forces them to do so in a certain manner.

The same can be said for forums, blogs, social networks…each have a certain behavioural effect on how a user would determine their contribution. It’s not a case of limited time nor is it a case of whether an outliner/PIM can achieve everything.

In fact this is another attitude exacerbated by online forums: if a situation where one extreme may not apply, the opposite extreme is most likely assumed to be the logical defense. It is so easy to miss the possible role of community collaborative teaching or mentor-newbie co-discovery learning. In forums, even someone with a PHD, would more likely yield to the process of “if the problem cannot be solved, the problem shouldn’t be solved at all”. The only exceptions are on where a certain stake is on the table be it a forum instructor who would teach a newbie but insist to do their steps only and then completely leave the slow pokes behind or be it a software designer/fan of software design proposing the usage of such software without even doing the simple process of differentiating which problematic aspect needs a screwdriver and which problematic aspect needs a hammer. The mere existence of the sentence is enough.