[esafak]

Heavy is relative. If you're working with videos, everything is heavy in terms of file size relative to most files. Yet, a small text file could be just as important as any video.

I think this is a fun thought experiment that is fundamentally a bad product idea.

[edgineer]

I think this type of concept is worth exploring. Side channel feedback to the operator of a machine is getting less noticeable. Hard drives don't whirr and click like they used to. Cars don't have transmissions that shift.

When you pick up a physical object with your hands, you don't assume the heavier the object, the more important it is. Same with file size.

But if you pick up your carton of eggs every morning you'll know if you have enough left to make an omelette.

If you make a backups it would be nice feedback to feel it weigh about what you expected. When making room on a disk you could juggle a few folders to feel if they'll fit or not.

There was some advanced facility (nuclear reactor? particle accelerator?) that laid microphones near the machinery and put various speakers in the ceiling of the control room; helped precisely detect and pinpoint problems immediately.

That said I'll prefer just seeing the size of the file or folder in bytes as a number.

I'm personally more interested in feeling other system metrics, like network traffic or memory bandwidth.

[eastbound]

Hearing the HDD back in the day was important to understand whether the computer was working; It seemed like a loss when we moved to SSD, but SSDs are so fast that sound isn’t a necessary sensor anymore.

[zootboy]

I've always thought it would be neat if the accelerator pedal on cars had some sort of force feedback that was proportional to the amount of power the engine is putting out. That way the driver would be able to feel how hard they're demanding the car to work, and hopefully they would adjust their driving habits to go slower on steep hills, not hard accelerate out of traffic lights, etc.

[edgineer]

Yeah! I liked seeing the "miles per gallon" meter that some cars have for that purpose. IIRC driving habits account for at least 10% of fuel efficiency losses, and by my napkin math, you could drop carbon emissions in the US by 5% if you 1. put such a meter in every car and 2. drivers heeded and learned from it.

While modifying pedals is risky, maybe you could take an OBD-II data stream and turn instantaneous power output into sound, or vibration... or lower your music volume the harder you push it...

[shiveeshfotedar]

I understand. My motivation was to play with the pressure input with "heaviness". Fundamentally , pressure is a continuous input that becomes harder to perform progressively. We can apply this characteristic ins some other relationship too.

[shiveeshfotedar]

Its true , the interaction only works when its surrounded with other interaction. Moving all the heavy files in an video editing bay with this much pressure will just accelerate carpal tunnel.

I was interested in exploring to give more physicality to the virtual objects , they are "opened" , they "moved " I was playing with the idea if they can be "lifted" or be able to "stick" with pressure etc.

[proof_by_vibes]

I agree that it is relative, but disagree with your conclusion. I think the relativity you have in mind is what we normally think of as a setting.

[fainpul]

The size of a file has nothing to do with its importance. But it's a valuable piece of information when you're shoveling data around.

[ThrowawayTestr]

A box of large rocks feels different than a box of pebbles. Maybe this could be simulated.