We're a publishing company. We believe that technology should be invisible and seamless, augmenting our lives without taking up too much of our direct attention. While many of our technologies, like our electrical, water, and telephony technologies, achieve this, some of our newer technologies, like digital computers, do not. We're here to fix that.
Our Imprint
Every novel starts with a first chapter, every movie with an opening scene. We're starting with an imprint. In the publishing industry, an imprint is a more narrowly focused trade name or brand, meant to target a specific audience. We believe that the first step toward invisible and seamless digital computing technology is to teach the world computing.
Skriptble Press does that through learning, teaching, and thinking in public about computing and related topics. You can read more about these efforts on the Skriptble Press website.
At Skriptble Publishing Inc, we believe that people should be empowered to build better lives, and that they should be able to do that through invisible and seamless technology. As a society, we've done this many times before, through telephony, indoor plumbing, electricity, and more. We've created foundational technologies that are so ubiquitous that even though we see them every day they've become invisible. Technologies so fundamental that different components, based on completely different ideas, fit together in a seamless way. Most of the foundational technologies that we use today fit this model, but of the exceptions, digital computing is the most notable.
An example of an invisible and seamless technology is indoor plumbing. Not only are the pipes that carry potable and waste water invisible, so are the fixtures that we use to access these things: the sinks, faucets, showers, and toilets. In a literal sense they are visible, we can see them after all, but they fade into the background. If you walk into a kitchen that doesn't have a sink, you'll sense something is missing. If you're directed to a bathroom that's missing a shower, a toilet, and a sink, you'll quickly notice that they are missing. The absence of these things is more visible than their presence. We also don't tend to think about these things when we use them. How often do you actually think that you're using the sink in your kitchen? You're doing something that requires the sink, but the sink itself is rarely the focus. Indoor plumbing is seamless. There is a system that carries potable water to all of the fixtures. It's a high pressure system that works based on pumps, with pipes kept pressurized so that water flows, but also to keep bacteria and other harmful things out of the supply. There is a system that carries waste water away through the drains. This system is a low pressure system that works mostly on gravity, with bends in drain pipes to ensure toxic gases don't flow into our spaces, and pipes at slanted angles to ensure that waste waster flows to its destination, where it can be treated. These systems are fundamentally different, with entirely different purposes, and yet they fit together seamlessly. They must, because when they don't get wind up with backed up drains or contaminated water supplies. We wouldn't like indoor plumbing as much if we had to carry waste water across the room to dispose of it.
Our digital computing world is much like having to carry our waste water from the sink to a drain. The digital computers we have are ever present to us. They never fade into the background. The repository of knowledge, or at least our connection to it, constantly buzzes and flashes at us, begging for attention. It seeks to be visible at all times. Not only that, but the seams between its components are constantly showing. One computer system holds some of the data we need, and another system holds some other bit of data, and we have to manually copy the data from one to the other to achieve our goals. For our devices, even if you couldn't tell from the physical object itself, you'll know which brand it is as soon as you see what operating system it uses. The seams between our social platforms are built into the very design language they use, it's constantly apparent whether the source of a chunk of text is from one platform or another: you can tell what social network someone is on from across the room. When something breaks you don't have the luxury of calling the equivalent of a plumber, you instead have to seek out a specific authorized support human for your given digital product. We've managed to build a system wherein water refuses to flow through certain pipes because the water supply company and the pipe manufacturer haven't come to an agreement that this particular water is allowed to flow through these specific pipes.
This mess is deepened by the reality that digital computing is embedded into every aspect of our lives. Everything we do involves dozens and sometimes hundreds of computer systems and software. Sometimes they are direct, like when you wake up in the morning to light vibrations from your smartwatch, and sometimes indirect, like the CAD systems that were used to design and manufacture the door you open to leave your home each day.
At the same time that we've added more and more software to our lives, and as it has become more visible and full of more and more seams, the things that run that software look nothing like they did even a couple decades ago. Twenty years ago you could point to a box, call it a computer, and you would generally be correct. But now if you point at the modern equivalent of that same box, you aren't so right anymore. Sure, we call that thing a computer, but it's actually made up of a whole bunch of smaller, extremely complex and general purpose, computers. So why do we call the box the computer? Why isn't one of the smaller computers inside the box the computer? And if we're saying that a computer is actually made up of a bunch of smaller computers then why is this particular box the computer? Why isn't a collection of 42 such boxes a computer?
We didn't have this problem in the past because computers were rather large, but now they are absolutely tiny. This has had pretty large implications on the world, and the world of software has pretended that relatively little has changed. There were visible seams before, but this disconnect has made the situation exponentially worse.
We need to fix this. But the current structures don't work for learning about this new world. We see computing as wholly encompassed by digital computers, with perhaps a few new and old types of computers showing up along the edges. All computing, but especially digital computing, has the power to change our lives. When wielded properly, it can empower people to build better lives, but only if it can integrate into our lives similar to how previous empowering technologies have. That is, if computing is to empower us to build better lives, then it must become both invisible and seamless. The path previous technologies have taken to this point looked different. Our water supply and treatment systems look far different than our electrical grid, and future versions of those things will look different from their current iterations. The invisibility of these systems, the seamless nature of their integration into our lives, while not perfect, allows us to live our lives, to better our lives, without them being the center of attention. We must require the same of digital computing.
Empower people to build better lives through invisible and seamless technology
Skriptble Publishing Inc. is a publishing company that empowers people to build better lives through building invisible and seamless technology. This is our Just Cause, it's the impossible feat that we choose to pursue. There will be not point at which all of our technology is invisible and seamless. Even when a particular technology does achieve this trait, there is maintenance and innovation required to keep it invisible and seamless. This is a fitting pursuit for a company, because there is also no point at which a company is complete. There is no point at which a company is done.
The first step in our pursuit of this Just Cause is to teach the world computing. We cannot create a world with invisible and seamless computing if the people who build computers and the software that runs on them do not understand what computing is and what makes modern computing so different from the computing of 30 years ago. To that end, and in the tradition of publishing, we've created an imprint to pursue that goal. It's called Skriptble Press, and you can learn all about it here.
If you want to support this Just Cause, you'll soon be able to purchase a membership to the publications of Skriptble Press. In the meantime, if you want to provide general support you can sponsor us on GitHub Sponsors. In the future we plan to provide more direct forms of monetary support.
Available at Skriptble Press
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