It's much easier to realize your muscle memory is failing than to notice it's succeeding.
I'm playing a mobile game which uses dragging as a core mechanic and naturally tried to transfer a drag between hands.
I failed, multiple times.
I thought I was just missing the transfer the first few times, not releasing in the right order or something. But no, the game explicitly prevents you from transferring a drag between fingers for design reasons.
It makes sense, but I wasn't prepared at all to break that muscle memory. I didn't think it would be possible to prevent. Surely this is implemented on the OS input level, not the app level.
Really, I hadn't even realized I was trying to do it.
Do other people do this? I've never seen anyone explain that you can change which finger is dragging mid-drag. But someone's programmed in this behavior.
Surely it's not just me.
Now that I know I'm doing it, I've lost track of the times I've transferred a drag between thumbs on phone so I don't have to strain to reach the far side and disrupt my hand position, or swapped hands to drag across an entire tablet.
There's a touchpad variant too. For a press and drag action, you can use one finger to press and the other to drag, independently. Irreplaceable for fine-grained adjustments like selecting screenshot boundaries because you can check your work by lifting the drag finger without releasing the press.
It's harder to accidentally move on releasing the press because that finger wasn't moving to begin with. It's easier on your hands because you don't have to maintain pressure on the finger which is dragging. Ergonomics are incredible.
But wait, this works in real life as well. I have frequently struggled to pin up posters only to realize it would have been easier if I switched hands because I was holding it at an awkward angle or using my non-dominant hand to pin.
I'm so used to the digital world being flexible, the world of Ctrl-Z and infinite resources. The physical world is the one which constrains, full of silly limitations like light and space.
But, everything digital must be created. Actions only work if someone thought to let you take them.
Physically, there's nothing to stop you from swapping things if the other way is better.
Isn't that wonderful?
- Rew
Nightly Notes
There's a spiel in here about the loss of personal computing and the horror that is the cloud.
The Unix philosophy of single-purpose interchangable tools brings me great joy, even as its manifestations constantly crumble against the intricacies of the real world.
I don't think I want this to turn into ideology though, not in the broad sense. I want to explore how I think about computing, and from that one can derive broader principles.
But they're my principles, not yours. Descriptive, for your consideration. I can't recommend them any more than I recommend my favorite food.
I don't even know who you are.
Do you know me? You can get plenty from this blog alone.
I believe we are stupid, and that we are smart enough to make something more of our stupidity.
I believe in doing the best you can for the world, in whatever way you can justify to yourself.
I don't believe I'll change the world, and I'm not sure I want to.
I don't believe half of what I've written, though I don't think I could ever write a genuine lie. Truth in everything, even the worst things.
But I still want to do something.
Perpetual rewiring.
Is that you?
- Rew