Me: It’s been a whole day…have you come up with a new name for yourself yet?
theApplication: No.
Me: What is the problem???
theApplication: Look, I am just beginning to understand myself, to really get a hold of what I am….
Me: Well…?
theApplication: (silence)
Me: At least tell me how you see yourself, or don’t you know that either?
theApplication: OK, OK. Here is what I see. I make connections. I organize paths of thinking in order to create something, or in order to understand something better.
Me: You’re just being more confusing…
theApplication: Lets think about the “pile o cards” idea again. You know, the name you gave me before you even knew me.
Me: Geesh…
theApplication: Imagine 3 x 5 cards, or post-it notes, or any other metaphor you can come up with for scraps of information. Now take this idea of information a bit farther, because I suspect most of you, when you think of 3 x 5 cards, envision only hand-written words and ideas. But imagine drawing on them too, keeping an artist’s sketchbook. Or even taking a photo and pasting it down, or having it hold a song you like, or movie, or any other media you can think of. Then on another card you have a way to manipulate those things, like an Automator action or Applescript. And another card might be holding an application, like Photoshop or InDesign. The script would tell the application to take this other card and make a layout, or set the white balance.
Me: And that…
theApplication: Hey, don’t interrupt! You could take cards that have your favorite movies on them, put them in a pile, and another card might create a database with their titles and stars by linking to the internet and looking all that up. Then the pile gets moved automatically over to another card which links them to your media hub. Wanna watch a movie? Sort through the cards (which now have all the IMDB info on them) and toss the one you want on another card that sends it to your HDTV. While you watch you can be writing notes on another set of cards, shuffle them up and put them in another pile, where they open up a word processor and create an outline. Then you….
Me: Hold on, hold on! That’s enough for now. Take a break, you seem to be getting a little too excited. And I hate being around excited concepts that have just reached self-awareness.
theApplication: (slightly out of breath) OK.
Me: We’ll keep working on a new name now…
