
UIs that accidentally preserve memories - mistersquid
https://www.metafilter.com/174152/UIs-that-accidentally-preserve-memories
======
DavidVoid
It's interesting how you can almost completely forget about something that or
someone who used to be such an important part of your life, and yet it doesn't
take much for you to suddenly remember all about it/them.

Here's an excerpt from a letter written by Marcel Proust in 1913 that I came
across not that long ago.

 _" So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it but
if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we are suddenly intoxicated and
similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them
but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears."_

~~~
Waterluvian
Wow. That is so well written. In a few words he's completely captured the
sensation of nostalgia that I often chase after.

~~~
pje
Good news! There are 4200 more pages where that came from.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Search_of_Lost_Time)

------
mieseratte
Between TFA, and this thread I remembered I needed to check up on my gaming
buddy, I hadn't heard from him in a few months. He hadn't been answering his
Steam chat, texts, nothing. After not getting any response, I did a little
digging and came across his obituary and reached out to some common friends
and confirmed the news.

I also found out, the reason he still shows as online is his coworkers found
his Steam profile on a company desktop. They left it plugged in and online so
he'd stay with us.

Rest in Peace, Dave.

~~~
noobermin
There was once this copy-pasta thread or may be it was a capture on 4chan a
few years ago where a user remembers a player from an fps (don't remember
which). He was a player from Egypt and being 4chan they thought his broken
english and odd words regarding the fps fighting in game was entertaining so
the author befriended him and added him to his Steam contact list. Around the
time of the Arab spring, the friend told the author about the unrest, and that
he might not come back in real life. I think he might have made an allusion to
the "fight" in game matches as similar to this real fight. The conclusion of
the article was the "last online: 3 months ago" tag line at the bottom of the
chat box, or some other time period like that.

EDIT: found it[0]. Got the bit about the allusion to the fight in game wrong.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/6EB2lPJ.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/6EB2lPJ.jpg)

------
denom
The reason that we need a right to be forgotten is encoded in this 'UI-forced'
remembering. Forgetting the awkward moments is one thing, but it _is_ natural
to be born, grow, and change. In those earlier centuries, it was only the
remembrances encoded in our cultural practices and personal intent that
governed what remained. Even the organic, compostable material of everyday
life (like wood and leather) would decay to nothing. Liberation by time and
forgetting can be a lonely thing, especially considering the ultimate ends of
_all_ our endeavors. By comparison, the memoria we maintain today is akin to
plastic floating in the ocean, we don't need it, it will outlive us, and
periodically it collides perfectly to bear the fruit of a poignant nostalgia.

In the previous ages, we buried our ancestors and in turn were buried.

~~~
ljm
I think this is especially true as more apps depend on machine learning (or
'AI') to provide a useful experience. Opening a weather app and seeing an old
home (and triggering the memory) is one thing but there is absolutely nothing
malicious about an app that saves a preference so you don't have to search for
it every time.

More insidious is with those more clever services because they seem to become
weighted to your earlier choices and your present self has little influence
over what the machine has decided to learn. So you have Spotify where the
first few hundred songs and artists you listen to have pretty much defined
your taste in music and due to the amount of data collected to identify who
you are across the internet, you're unlikely to get a fresh start by creating
a new account.

The fundamental problem with this kind of memory in tech is that it doesn't
appreciate that people change. It won't forget, it won't let go and move on,
it won't adapt the same way a person will, it'll probably discount much of
that change for being anomalous after some time. Or at least, that's what my
fear is.

------
cyberferret
9 years after he passed, I still cannot bring myself to delete my dad's name
and contact details from my phone.

My wife went one better. Her mum passed within months of my dad (she was ill
with cancer), and my wife spontaneously recorded the last few conversation
they ever had on Voice Memos on her phone, and I know she still listens to
them every now and then. I've backed those up off her phone as well, and kept
them safely archived.

------
koolba
In my younger days I wished for more of this so that cell phones would
automatically save the initial date/time/location that a number was added.

Would have made it easier to remember the context of meeting some lady
friends.

------
mistersquid
Some of the user comments share poignant memories of relationships and people
past and passed.

You might find it worth your while to scan past some of the earlier more
casual and naive posts to find the more poignant ones.

~~~
dsnuh
I joined Metafilter in 2002, and although I no longer use it as my main source
of content discovery, I do love to go back now and again. It's always been a
top notch community, and if you haven't ever spent some time on the site, I
highly recommend it.

~~~
AlexCoventry
I still read it and scan through maybe five comment threads a week for
insightful perspectives, but I no longer participate because the community is
toxic and mind-killing these days. To me, at any rate.

Edit: IB4, "Metafilter: Toxic and mind-killing, these days."

~~~
Sangermaine
Do you mind explaining why you think so? That's a pretty surprising
perspective; the community often has intelligent discussions about a range of
topics.

~~~
AlexCoventry
Yes it does, as long as the discussion doesn't veer into political questions,
which can happen in surprising and dismaying ways at times.

~~~
dsnuh
But I find that to be true of every online forum I can think of, HN is no
different.

~~~
AlexCoventry
No, explicit personal attacks are generally frowned on, here.

~~~
dsnuh
I haven't found that to be generally acceptable on Metafilter, but again, I
haven't really frequented since the mathowie days.

~~~
AlexCoventry
That was a long time ago.

------
ashishb
I strongly believe that over time, all information would be modeled with an
expiration timestamp. The fact that I use to visit a coffee shop 5 years back
is neither useful for me or the advertisers.

~~~
YaxelPerez
Right, but nostalgia is a powerful thing. I'm sure if advertisers knew you
watched some movie 20+ years ago they would target you even harder to make you
watch the unwarranted reboot/sequel.

~~~
donatj
That seems like a case of something I would want to be advertised though.

------
donatj
I’ve written about it before, but AIM until the very end showed my friend who
died six years ago as logged in on his dumb phone because his phone never sent
an explicit logout signal.

I never had the heart to remove him. The day AIM shutdown was very emotional
for me. It felt almost like he died again.

------
ksenzee
Oh man. I wasn't expecting that thread to make me cry. It's worth reading, but
get a Kleenex.

~~~
SuperPaintMan
[Disclaimer, drunk and using a small phone]

A few years back one of my old irc buddies reached out to me with a simple
'hey man what's up' on gChat. Because my schedules were all over the place and
whatnot I just looked off and left it. Checked on a old podcast I used to
listen to (HPR) and the boys had put together a memorial episode after he lost
his battle with cancer. Cancer, I didn't even know. For a year he was the one
unread chat off in my Gmail inbox (because who the fuck uses gChat?) and I
didn't give it a look, or notice the growing away time. You ever try talking
to the dead over XMPP and wish there was a time machine setting?

Wherever you're at LordDrachenblut, give em hell, I'm sorry I didn't reach
out. I still go over your old episodes and feeds every now and again bud.
That's the weird part, the leftover breadcrumbs from life.

