I'm not much of a User Interface geek (that is, I enjoy a pointless but entertaining way of getting around a site as much as anyone), but as a web designer I'm always interested on how convey maximum amounts of information/direction to users as simply and cleanly as possible.
So I thought this was a pretty cool blog post about how icons become less effective as they become more "realistic." It's like as humans we have this sweet spot with symbols: too much detail, or too little, and they stop becoming useful to use as clues to their meaning.
Anyway, I liked that in itself. But then right below on the same blog was this demo of a 3D style computer desktop. Unintentionally, it kind of proves the point of the first. Really, do I need a 3D representation of my desktop in order to use my computer better? It has some cool tools, I'll say that, but there's a point where the guy has all these stacks of documents there, and I couldn't help thinking "I don't need a computer to replicate the stacks of crap everywhere, that's what real life is for."
Who knows, maybe it's the future and I'll have to adapt. After all, my father still puts up a spirited defence of the superiority of the Command Line Interface over these stupid "icons" all over his iMac screen.
But but but - you should show your father the fab 'terminal' application he has access to on his iMac! Best of both worlds!