
Dynamicland Communal Computer - walterbell
https://dynamicland.org/
======
GuiA
The core insight, in my eyes at least, of the Dynamicland project is that a
projector + a camera is more interesting for deploying computation in a manner
that permeates the physical world than screens. Weiser’s vision [0] could not
see beyond the boundaries of the display and unnecessarily constrained itself
as a result. But we have cheap megapixel CCDs and projectors now (and the GPU
power to get something useful out of “neural network” systems, although I’m
not sure whether Dynamicland makes much use of that) and it enables
interactions that were unthinkable with a regular two-dimensional display.

And then it turns out that such a system works really well with more
constructivist approaches to computer supported learning and collaboration,
and the Dynamicland team is doing a very solid job at developing that too.

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180210180104/http://www.ubiq.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180210180104/http://www.ubiq.com/hypertext/weiser/SciAmDraft3.html)

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yoz
I got to play with Dynamicland for a couple of hours last week, thanks to a
meetup organised by Steve Krouse and Omar Rizwan. Steve runs the Future Of
Coding podcast ( [https://futureofcoding.org/](https://futureofcoding.org/) )
and Slack community, and Omar is a researcher at Dynamicland. Last year Omar
posted an excellent, detailed breakdown of GeoKit, a map toolkit he created at
Dynamicland; it includes much of the technical detail and videos you probably
want if you've read this far: [https://rsnous.com/posts/notes-from-
dynamicland-geokit/](https://rsnous.com/posts/notes-from-dynamicland-geokit/)

My own feelings about Dynamicland, after a couple of hours there, are mixed
but mostly positive:

* Like many who experience it, I don't have a handle on DL's most valuable differentiators as a platform. But that's OK, because it feels like they're not trying to achieve that yet; it's more about just experimenting. We're so unused to computing with this UX model that it's going to take a while to find its best uses.

* Plus, DL is chasing an idea for which the hardware barely exists yet. Ideally, it would be cheaply sensing full 3D in the environment, and projecting higher contrast visuals at all angles.

* Even so, there are some easy, playful ideas they've done that are wonderful. For example, an animator script which lays out three paper-sized outlines to the right of wherever you place the script, and then rapidly cycles the images it captures from those outlines. So, if you want to teach animation, you just draw a cycle across three pieces of paper, put them in the outlines, and the animation shows up instantly on the animator.

* The RealTalk code for the whole DL environment is pasted on a couple of whiteboards on one side of the space. They've voluntarily chosen to constrain themselves in how complex it can be. I really like that.

~~~
yoyobaba
The hardware already exists from MVIS (Microvision):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWFCR55tsuA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWFCR55tsuA)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1KlJgT-
eNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1KlJgT-eNY)

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millettjon
I really wish they would open source some code and instructions to replicate
this. It would benefit many people that will never have the chance to visit
Oakland. The closest things I have found are La Tabla
([http://tablaviva.org/](http://tablaviva.org/)) and Paper Programs
([https://paperprograms.org/](https://paperprograms.org/)).

~~~
Glench
I understand your sentiment, but as Alan Kay likes to say, "The music isn't in
the piano."

~~~
_mhr_
But there's only a single piano available at the moment.

~~~
Glench
Haha, it's true. And there's no music in it. :)

I see a lot of people focusing on the technology of Dynamicland but less the
idea behind it, which is to make computation more of a medium that's
continuous with our human world, not something that is trapped in tiny
rectangles (hijacking our attention and crippling our bodies) where only
people with developed symbolic representation skills can use it. The
technology will change and be outdated in many years (like paper and pens have
changed over time), but the medium will live on. Maybe my work on Laser Socks
provides another example in this space:
[http://glench.com/LaserSocks/](http://glench.com/LaserSocks/)

~~~
_mhr_
My point was that it's difficult for an instrument designer to build a piano
from scratch, even understanding the idea behind it, without opening one up
and seeing how it works first. I understand the Alan Kay-esque hesitation to
avoid having a community crystallize around what's perceived by its creators
as just a prototype (referencing Kay's unhappiness with Smalltalk's relative
lack of innovation over the decades).

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danbolt
In programming work I often can feel frustrated when I don’t know how to
communicate a technical estimate or design nuance to a non-technical manager
or stakeholder. If something such as this could be used as a to help express
or explore technical planning to non-technical people, I think this could be
incredibly useful.

Users here familiar with the game industry likely know about Unreal Engine’s
blueprints as a kind of abstraction between C++ code and a more “design-y”
format. It has its problems of course, but I think the more we can help
express technical problems in a productive way our industry will better manage
tech, I think.

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miki123211
I see one huge problem with Dynamicland. Normal computer programs let you
choose how you interact with them. It can be a touchscreen, a keyboard and a
screenreader or a screen and voice control / a set of switches. You can write
the same code and use the same services using any of those. That's not true
about dynamicland. You must be there and actually touch and manipulate it.
Whether it's paper and pebbles or some new, futuristic technology, if the main
representation sits in the real world, you must be able to manipulate the real
world to manipulate the program. That's moving us back about fifty years or so
in temrs of accessibility. It's also undoing all the progress the internet has
made possible (being able to access and work on anything, anywhere, with
anyone).

~~~
nikofeyn
there is nothing accessible about modern day computers. we can’t see anything
that is going on, and it is terribly difficult if not impossible to change
things in most cases. almost all of modern computing is a collection of tunnel
visioned boxes that can’t communicate with each other.

i just don’t see how you can claim “normal” computer programs let you choose
how you interact with them. i don’t see that at all.

i think you miss the point of dynamicland because it is about accessibility.
it is about touching. it is about seeing. in dynamicland, there are a
multitude of ways to interact with the system.

~~~
miki123211
I haven't experienced it myself, though I've read about it a lot. As far as I
see it, the code is actually somewhere in the real world, on a whiteboard, on
paper or on anything else. That means that, to change the code, you actually
need to be able to touch that paper/whiteboard/whatever. If you have a visual
or mobility impairment, you're excluded.

We're confusing two notions of accessibility here. Dynamicland is more
accessible for a normal user who wants to tinker under the hood (compared to
closed source apps). It's less accessible for individuals who need alternate
representations of the digital reality. With Dynamicland, the code is actually
stored in the real world and the computer merely interprets it. If you can't
manipulate the real world, you can't manipulate the code. When you use a
normal computer system, the program is stored inside that system and you can
use any input/output device to manipulate it. That includes keyboards,
touchscreens, screen readers, switches, voice control or even brain computer
interfaces. Using them to manipulate something written on a whiteboard is
impossible.

While I agree with the goal of making software and systems more open to the
average person, I think solutions like Smalltalk, that don't distinguish
between the code itself and it's manifestation and let you open any system and
tinker under it's hood, along with better programming literacy taught in
schools are the way forward. I agree that smartphone screens with their
addictive qualities aren't the best option out there, but I don't think
Dynamicland is the solution. Something akeen to it, using AR, or even better,
Matrix-like VR when that becomes a thing, would be actually a much better
solution. Sadly, we're not there yet.

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scottishcow
Brings back memories of tangible interface research around the year 2000,
these ideas seemed to have so much potential back then. Unfortunately nobody
has come up with a convincing argument as to exactly _why_ we need tangibles,
aside from some philosophical musings that fetishize the supposed "richness"
of real-world interaction.

The value proposition of tangibles took an especially hard blow when
smartphones hit the market — multi-touch direct input achieves much of what
tangibles promise to offer (e.g., intuitiveness) while retaining all of the
benefits of digital computation (e.g., portability of data, negligible
marginal cost of production) that are sacrificed in systems like Dynamicland.

~~~
nikofeyn
> Unfortunately nobody has come up with a convincing argument as to exactly
> why we need tangibles, aside from some philosophical musings that fetishize
> the supposed "richness" of real-world interaction.

i am not sure i understand how appealing to human experience is a
fetishization.

> multi-touch direct input achieves much of what tangibles promise to offer
> (e.g., intuitiveness)

i fully disagree about the intuitiveness of multi-touch inputs which tend to
have a hidden gesture language. simply trying every possible permutation of
touches and gestures, which is what most people do when presented with a new
touch interface, does not represent intuitiveness. buttons, sliders, switches,
etc. always yield much more efficient and intuitive interfaces.

also, humans are not digital computers, and we struggle to think like them.
humans really like the physical world we're born into, and our senses respond
positively to things that trigger them. our senses are dulled when interacting
with digital computers. look at the synthesizer world. it's a common fact that
software synthesizers are extremely flexible and convenient (in some ways, not
so in others) but are monotonous to interact with. people often (almost
always?) augment them with tangible external interfaces such as knobs,
buttons, and keyboards. people tend to much prefer hardware synths (digital or
analog based) that they can touch, feel, smell, see, etc. it creates a
tangible environment that is much more enjoyable.

------
dang
A discussion from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15962730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15962730)

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euske
Interesting, but honestly don't think this is going to be a viable model for
education, especially for CS education. The setup looks too cumbersome (and
probably unreliable) as of today. And worse, there are just too many hidden
parts which are sometimes faulty. This is bad because it creates a leaky
abstraction; when the users see some abstraction (e.g. face recognition)
reliable but others not, they'll have to work around the system and make up
some ad-hoc solution. This might be useful for teaching social sciences (with
manipulatable graphs, etc) but I'm afraid that this just confuses students
more in certain subjects.

~~~
nikofeyn
> there are just too many hidden parts which are sometimes faulty

i guess you must live in a different universe than me if this doesn’t apply to
“normal” and “viable” computer systems and cs education.

the entirety of your post seems like you are just making stuff up out of thin
air simply because it is different than what you know. have you used
dynamicland? have you seen presentations on it? have you watched how it works?

if something doesn’t work in dynamicland, you can just go and look at what
isn’t working. it’s all there. a major component of bret victor’s work is
_seeing_. watch his talk _seeing spaces_ for some elaboration.

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magicmouse
I think DynamicLand should abandon their color-dots based encoding system, and
use a modified QR Code. QR code is a completely debugged barcode system that
doesn't require a color printer. I happen to own a nice big 50lb Canon Color
Laser right next to my desk, but in academic environments, black and white
lasers are only available, for the simple reason that color lasers cost 4x per
page of monochrome printers. My toner cart set is more than the printer cost!

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protomyth
Is there any documentation on Realtalk?

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steveeq1
I am sooooo going to go to this next time I am in the bay area.

Lua!

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analognoise
If the internet has taught me anything, it will be full of Swastikas and
penises the moment you get above a certain critical mass of users.

~~~
hobo_mark
It is not an anonymous website, it is a physical space. The same rules about
vandalism that apply in, say, a library, would apply there.

Bret already answered similar concerns:

[https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/959852576274444288](https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/959852576274444288)

[https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/1036409565389185024](https://twitter.com/worrydream/status/1036409565389185024)

