I was having a conversation with some friends recently about the immense diversity of the things we each do on a computer over the course of a day – same computer screen, wildly different mindsets. For example, we typically use a completely different set of mental constructs in order to, on the one hand, play a first-person shooter, and on the other hand, to read our email.
But why, we wondered, should these two worlds be so separate and distinct? Why not read your email the way you play a first person shooter? After all, haven’t you ever felt a surge of pent up hostility upon receiving that annoying spam message yet again – the one you thought you had filtered out for good? Wouldn’t it be great to have some way to channel those emotions?
In my mind I am imagining my email inbox divided into dungeon levels. On the one hand, there are the relatively gentle levels, where we might encounter most professional and personal emails. And then there are the other levels further down – the ones where we keep all the aggressive spam that we have captured, but have not yet deleted from our hard drive. When you enter these levels, and find yourself face to face with your sworn enemy, it may be best to go out with guns blazing.
What would we call our game? How about “Mailbox Assassin”? Or “Email Nemesis”? Or maybe just “Going Postal”? Can anyody think of another likely name?
Someone has already done it.
http://www.3dmailbox.com/
For me the last thing I want to do is approach a computer with the same mindset. I would have spent 12+ hours a day for the last 20 years in front of a computer to do everything from work to entertainment to socializing. The computer is merely a tool to represent different environments with which to achieve these goals.
I don’t want to spend 16 hours a day in work mode, nor spend 16 hours a day in FPS mode. I want the computer to adapt to MY diversity of thought and give me the tools to enhance those thought processes. I want a computer that can shift between work, study, play, research, communication, competition, etc as as quickly and seamlessly as we do.
Well, actually, I was joking. I figured the “Going Postal” title would give it away. 🙂