I've learned a lot of things from Ze Frank and his show, but probably the biggest was that if you've got an idea stewing in your brain, get it out there before you boil it down to nothin'. Or was it that you should add lots of pepper and not blink because you might sneeze into the stew? Now I'm confused.

Anyway, the idea I'd like to dump tonight is a video explanation of what I think my brain does when I quickly scan a google search hit list - it's not some cheap and dirty quickie information snatch, rather it's a fairly complex and robust cognitive engagement we're doing each time we scroll up and down, or follow a link and go back.

Actually, I think it's a lot like the difference between the "Ken Burns Effect" and zooming in and around a fractal landscape. What's in our brains, and how we process what we see, is complicated and deep and interconnectedy like that fractal, but what we do when we scroll up and down a search result page is more like panning and zooming in on a picture. To wit:

(If you don't see the video here, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijLDxgALc2c.)

The point being: it might *look* like a cheap video effect, but the simplicity of the user interface lets the user do the cognitive mapping in and out of their mental landscape.

There! I've been wanting to get this one out for a few years. I hope it makes sense.