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The Google Dance
Lately, Microsoft Word has been crashing a lot on my Windows XP machine. It always happens because of the same combination of stresses — if I try to save a file using “Ctrl-S” and then, a split-second later, try to close the document using “Ctrl-W”, the program crashes. The document sits there, uncertainly, not closing, not doing anything, and then about five seconds later, I get the crash dialog box popping up asking me if I’d like to “report this error automatically to Microsoft.” I always click “no.”
But since it’s been happening so frequently, I’ve begun to try and anticipate the precise location of the pop-up box — so I can click on “no” the instant it comes up. I’ve been doing that, too, with other repetitive dialog boxes that crop up, such as little annoying ones asking “are you sure?” on certain web sites. I’m so intimately familiar with most applications that I can usually position the pointer precisely in the center of where the pop-up box will emerge, nailing it a nanosecond after it crops up.
And it occurred to me that I’ve invented a game. It’s like Whack-A-Mole — trying to speed up annoyingly slow computer-processes by predicting where to click!
<kidding>All I need now is a name for it, and I can file a patent and then charge everyone 10 bucks whenever they do it.</kidding>
It also occurred to me that I should get a life.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
» see all of my photos on Flickr
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