Skip to content

Signal · When? · it connects

Element 37

37○‹
N
Notify

A now that arrives from somewhere else.

banner · badge · buzz

The other half of the exchange is Glance.

First known

From a history

1965CTSS MAIL: at login, CTSS printed 'YOU HAVE MAIL BOX'. MIT.

Dated by a reputable history or a participant's own account. The source.

  • ReadingValue

Specimen № 37 — operate freely

Keep the ball aloft while the toasts collect their tax.

Fig. 37 — Notify

000 readings · idle

Anatomy of Notify

  1. 01Arrive
    You
    Is busy with something else.
    It
    Puts a message in view, uninvited.
  2. 02Cost
    You
    Glances at it, and loses a beat of what they were doing.
    It
    Takes a slice of attention, whether or not it mattered.
  3. 03Act or ignore
    You
    Opens it, or doesn't.
    It
    Opens the thing, or lets it fade.
  4. 04Silence
    You
    Turns on Do Not Disturb.
    It
    Holds messages until asked.

Phases light as the specimen above registers them. The dark ones are the ones it can't sense.

Lineage

MIT's CTSS told you at login that YOU HAVE MAIL in 1965. Desktop alerts grew out of mail beeps and badges, Growl brought notification bubbles to the Mac in 2004, and push notifications reached the iPhone in 2009.

Descends from
Notify
Gave rise to

Under delegation

Mutates

  1. Survives
  2. Mutates
  3. Dissolves

Agents work while you're away, so notifications are how they'll come back to you. Every "done", "stuck", and "needs you" lands on the same channel that taxes attention. The work is in the triage: which events deserve you now, which can wait for a digest, and which you never need to see.

Becomes

Down the Signal column

  1. it reactsPPress
  2. it followsHHold
  3. it targetsOOpen
  4. it remembersScSchedule
  5. it connectsNNotify
  6. it guessesWWake
  7. it actsIInterrupt

Read down and Press gets heavier: each step is the same act, on a machine that keeps track of more.

Bodies

The act stays put while the hardware changes. These are some of the forms Notify takes.

  • badge
  • buzz

From the 2021 table

These were tiles of their own. On this table each is a form of Notify, and each old address lands here.

  • VibrationHostA device or surface that carries the act.
  • NotificationRenamedThe same act, under a name that says what it does.Operate ↑