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Comment by mladenkovacevic | Hacker News Reader

I hate to sound condescending or preachy (unavoidable), but small minds will look at anything new with a sense of derision and in particular with regards to how foreign that thing seems directly to them as a vapid consumer. They will not be able to engage their sense of empathy and imagine the possibilities where that new thing might actually benefit someone in a really meaningful way.

Bigger minds will look at new things not as a product or the "next thing all the cool people gotta have" but an opportunity to better ourselves, and our relationships with each other.

[Too long;Skipped the preachyness]: Those who don't create, critique. But then someone's gotta keep people entertained too.

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"They will not be able to engage their sense of empathy and imagine the possibilities where that new thing might actually benefit someone in a really meaningful way."

"Bigger minds will look at new things not as a product or the "next thing all the cool people gotta have" but an opportunity to better ourselves, and our relationships with each other."

Are you seriously invoking empathy and "better relationships with each other", in defending something explicitly designed to distract us even more than we already are from the people around us?

And can you elaborate on how Google Glass will benefit us in a "really meaningful" way? As this comedy sketch drives home, if the value proposition is for Google Glass to be less distracting from human interaction, that's a pretty self-evidently farcical position. If there's Google Glass between you and the person you are talking to, you have every reason to believe you are not receiving their full attention. At least with a phone you have to pull out to look at, there is some kind of social signal that you are paying attention to something else right now.

I'm sure there are good use cases for Glass I just haven't seen yet, where it can provide a better UI experience than a phone. The ones I've read so far, however, sound awful. Getting spammed with advertisements walking down the street? Getting background on that person you are talking to who's name slipped your memory seems like a nice thing. But I think it just sets a new baseline, where remembering your name doesn't indicate any human connection, as you assume the Glass wearer just Googled you and got a heads up display on how to steer the conversation.

So I really do believe there will eventually be some positive use cases for technology like Glass. What this comedy sketch shows is that most of the use cases proposed so far are not it.

You know, one of these days we'll mature enough to put a "don't show me notifications for anything less urgent than a phone call" mode in our phones, and we'll all be better off.

I already feel much better that my work email account isn't on my phone.

I didn't mention Glass at all in my reply. I was speaking of the general attitude people take whenever something new and foreign comes along. It's an experiment... it could go really swell, or be rather disastrous. I think the risk is worth seeing what comes next.

And speaking of Glass and distractions.. can you not imagine a future where you don't have to "interact" much with Glass at all? But rather, it just kinda knows what you want and presents that information at the right time?

Also by building "better relationships with each other" I didn't mean Glass will somehow make you and your girlfriend or boyfriend connect on a deeper emotional level. I meant that humanity as a while could discover deeper empathy for each other and be able to divert resources and take action more appropriately for the benefit of humans or the whole planet. Well Glass alone isn't going to do all of that, but I think it is a tiny screw in a system that perhaps will.

"The ones I've read so far, however, sound awful. Getting spammed with advertisements walking down the street? Getting background on that person you are talking to who's name slipped your memory seems like a nice thing."

Do you have a source for these?

Are you just purposely reading bad reviews of Google Glass? I have read a lot of positive reviews of it along with bad ones. However, pretty much everybody who have actually tried it ended up liking it.

I have not seen Glass serve ads and Google is actually banning developers from serving them. Also, there's no face recognition for you to figure out people's names.

As somebody who have tested Glass since last year, I think it's a very useful device.

Google has been careful about Glass, not wanting it to be a device for distraction. It is pretty evident on the Glass API where they are very careful on what they opened to developers.

I'd suggest you read reviews from people who have actually used Glass.

Useful for what? This is what I'm wondering about.

I read this engadget review:

http://www.engadget.com/2013/04/30/google-glass-review/

and don't see anything where I'd prefer Glass over a phone.

There was a lot of voice stuff, similar to Siri, and Google's implementation may be better, buy it's not clear to me where the heads up display adds a lot of value over voice response, or voice response plus looking at your phone.

The biggest drawback to me is the very limited, 2D controller paradigm. It sounded a lot like the kind of UIs you see for DVD players, where you mainly navigate through Left/Right (and occasionally Up/Down) buttons. Versus the touch screen paradigm of being able to select and manipulate objects directly.

To me, this leaves a very narrow range of use cases where something like Glass provides the optimal user experience. Something where you need a display, but it takes too long to take your phone from your pocket, where a two way navigation UI suffices, and having to reach up to your temple to control it is not too awkward. Or a voice UI, where something more than a voice response is needed (otherwise, phone plus Siri like capability plus audio headset would suffice).

I'm sure these applications exist. I don't think any of the applications described in the Engadget review fit the bill.

So, as a Glass tester, tell me what I am missing. What are you seeing as the big wins of using Glass over just using your phone?

> but an opportunity to better ourselves, and our relationships with each other.

or an opportunity to worsen ourselves, and our relationships with each other. Why would you assume critics are small minded?

Pretty sure you missed the point of the /comedy/...

Well I did laugh so I can't have missed by that much :)

The 'blog-o-sphere' seems conflicted on Glass.

Personally, it seems like a step towards the inevitable "Entire History of You" future:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089050/

I'm excited about it from a UI-design perspective. It'll give us practice designing the head's up applications of the future.

Here's an interesting video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8xgYcoH0tA

The writing staff at SNL are prolific creators of works that capture the zeitgeist in a poignant and relevant way. I'm not really sure why you'd consider them to be clueless purveyors of circus instead of timely and informed critics. Apart from being preachy, your comment embodies the unqualified smugness of Silicon Valley, whereby every tool with a Github account thinks himself a world-changing entrepreneur cum artiste. There are a lot of people elsewhere doing amazing things, and a lot of people here are working on utterly banal tripe.

Some shit is just stupid, and I'd sooner trust the SNL writing staff's opinion on that.

The OP does sound like an ass, but I assume you either haven't watched SNL before or you have a really, really low standard for "capture the zeitgeist in a poignant and relevant way".

For sure, they are much better during political season. But yes, a lot of the things they create are hillarious and relevant. I sense that their clips are very frequently shared, although that's just anecdotal.

The point is that it seems bizarre to come out with a "we're creators of magic and they're plebeians" argument when talking about the people behind one of the longest running shows ever.

They have their moments (more in the early seasons than now), but it mostly follows a hive-mind, laugh-track recipe that re-tells the established, popular socio-political narrative and doesn't at all challenge anything or anyone.

I actually think some of their low-brow toilet humour, or the absurdist stuff is the funniest. For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with being all about toilet humour and absurdity, but I cringe when someone pretends they are doing "intelligent", political satire and ends up making a mildly funny skit out of a New York Times article.

The saddest thing of all though, is that this is exactly what's expected of them.

hive-mind

And what are you doing, if not clinging tightly to the "engineers are special" and "the geek shall inherit the earth" scripts? Are you seriously trying not to be condescending or are you just tossing out some boilerplate CYA?

I think you are assuming a lot about me. I am not an engineer nor do I have a special affinity for engineers. I haven't stepped foot in the Silicon Valley (although I've been to lots of other places). Also, I think a potato farmer has as much potential to change the world as any engineer.

Dismissing potential customers as having small minds is hardly the path to mass market success.

Products must be popular if they are going to change the world.

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