I second this, I want to know what that phone is

I wrote up my own experiences building a spatial interface recently; this article is much better though.

http://protonome.com/blog/calx-and-direct-manipulation/

This shit keeps me awake at night, too.

I usually write in a few lines of code that wipe the database in the (extremely unlikely, but hey) event that migrations fail - means the user has to log in again, but at least the app doesn't crash (or worse, work itself into a completely unusable state)

This is great - I've love to see somebody solve the concept of drawing constraints (personally I think the Interface Builder system, while comprehensive, leaves a lot to be desired).

I feel like the key to a good graphical constraints system is to come up with a consistent visual language for expressing constraints. I would expect to be able to toggle visual constraints on or off, or have several views into the same workspace with constraints on and off, at different sizes and aspect ratios.

Edit: By 'visual language', I have a very specific idea of what I mean - it should be rigidly defined enough to describe any combination of constraints, yet simple enough to be written down on paper in a design meeting.

See: http://i.imgur.com/WlMx6xp.jpg

I recommend persevering, I always run into this issue when installing Nokogiri on OS X, I always figure it out but I always forget how by the next time I run into it again.

Perhaps try installing Nokogiri independently before continuing?

Some results from Google:

http://www.nokogiri.org/tutorials/installing_nokogiri.html#mac_os_xhttps://gist.github.com/SteveBenner/de51738222e92d606487

Ottoman Empire clock faces used a unique adaptation of Persian numerals to fit a Western mechanical aesthetic:

http://unmakingthings.rca.ac.uk/2014/coming-full-circle-a-british-made-clock-for-the-ottoman-market/

Combine this thing:

http://www.adobe.com/products/ink-and-slide.html

with this thing:

http://vimeo.com/64895205

and you might be part way there.

As it stands I don't think I would switch from paper to Precursor/Photoshop/whatever. One thing I like about physical media is they don't have modes - I don't have to go click on the thing in order to switch from drawing ellipses to rectangles, and I'm not limited by the subset of functions the software engineer has included.

Another positive is that it's decentralised - I don't have to log into some website on the other side of the world in order to draw stuff. It's easily digitised and duplicated, too, you can take photographs of it and email the pictures around.

I don't mean to be harsh but the feeling I got from Precursor is that while it is very very pretty and perfectly minimalist and every animation and transition is gosh darned flawless, it's still just another thing for drawing text, rectangles and ellipses in largely the same way as everything that came before it.

This thing:

http://recursivedrawing.com

while just a proof of concept, is a great demonstration of a completely alternative drawing paradigm. I think if somebody took the principles outlined in this prototype and applied them to the general problem of drawing text, rectangles, and ellipses, then I could get down with that.

I don't think I've ever run across one of these dozens of prototyping applications that was better or as flexible as pencil and paper

I found myself getting RSI years ago - eventually figured out that there's no one solution - the trick is to constantly be changing devices all the time.

So I might use a trackpad at work and mouse at home, or tablet at work and trackpad at home, but always changing every few weeks so as not to fatigue myself.

Howdy Seth - yeap, I'm toggling it on and off all the time. Didn't realise you could use Command to switch it, cheers!