Blackboxing is how you do things with computers
tue20jun2006—25w171d46%— 13h38m00s—0utc
to blackbox could be to reify thru interface. To suggest or implement a conceptualization thru interface. A basic strategy for synthetizing reality, it stems from an active rewriting of the famous duck test: “If I make this look like a duck, and quack like a duck, I may as well be able to conceptualize it as a duck”. The conscious, deliberate, “I make” part is crucial; to blackbox is not just to simply conceptualize, is to wilfully conceptualize something by painting an interface on it.
(Contrived)) Usage Examples:
- “In modern programming, we blackbox our way out of complexity thru functions, objects, aspects, macros, and the like.”
- “Money is our society’s blackboxing of wealth, that is, of ‘what people want.’ We ought to remember it when trying to ‘make’ money.”
- “With the magic of silicone, you too can blackbox yourself a pair of massive pointy hooters!”
- “At this point, perhaps a better title for this essay is probably ’An easy way to blackbox your own file-extension.”
- “The Kuratowski definition of an ordered pair as {{a},{a,b}} is pure blackboxing.”
- “In defining the class PlanePoint, from the stored attributes xPos and yPos you can ”p">(and probably should) blackbox Distance from them thru the distance formula."
- “Let’s wrap these almost-expired candies with this cute cellopane bag and this lace bow, and blackbox them into a ‘Super Saving Kit’.”
- “I’m dying for someone to blackbox reputation, population, authority — the whole memetic shebang — thru some kind of social software.”
- “Don’t you find it amazing how blackboxing lanes and pedestrian crossings on the street thru mere painting can be so useful?”
- “Let’s blackbox operating systems away thru browsers!”
The word comes, of course, from the technical meaning of blackbox: “a device or system or object when it is viewed primarily in terms of its input and output characteristics.”