Hacker News Reader

Comment by ars | Hacker News Reader

That's how to tell if a technology is complete.

When computers started they were beige boxes, now they are decorated and colorful - so we know they are done.

People worry about how phones look, so those are done.

The first smart watches were functional, now they worry more about aesthetics, but none are actually on the market. So that technology is not done, but is getting close.

Cars have been all about aesthetics for decades now.

Etc, etc.

(Don't assume "complete" means they don't improve them, it just means any further changes are minor, and mostly unimportant.)

Airplanes for example seem like they are done - but they are not sold on looks, so they are not actually done. (Maybe a little bit on the inside?)

View on HN

Disagree strongly. Computers are way uglier now than they were in the 90s (beige boxes).

There is an arc in every art. It starts with the bare bone essentials, exposing the spirit and greatness. Then it becomes popular and amasses cruft until its unbearably overloaded and ugly. Then it gets stripped back to its original form, regaining its glory. And then we repeat.

Agreed. I started noticing 5 years ago that laptops started getting really... I don't know, tacky? Not to mention the dozens of stickers that no one thinks to peel off.

Also, anything marketed towards gamers tends to look like it has enough pieces and glow so much that it might be mistaken for a nuclear reactor.

Depends on the manufacturer, of course. Apple's laptop visual design over the last decade or so has been basically conservative, but you can really see the improvement from the original MacBook Pro from 2006:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/MacBook_P...

to the unibody one in 2008:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2e/Unibody_M...

Today's MacBook Pros look quite similar to that one (aside from being much thinner), but the light has been dropped, the power button has moved to the keyboard, and the "MacBook Pro" branding below the screen has been removed, resulting in a slightly cleaner look.

The new MacBook is a more dramatic change: it will bring the branding back, offer three metal colors, and cram the keyboard into the body in a way that looks slightly awkward to me, but has the obvious advantage of minimizing the physical size of the device. Time will tell how well its design holds up.

http://images.apple.com/v/macbook/b/overview/images/overview...

(No stickers, of course!)

This is why my current desktop is in this case: http://www.fractal-design.com/media/77283f52-3505-40db-8167-...

Super quiet, functional, and minimalistic.

This was my previous case: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CTlM72mKL.jpg

At first I thought it looked great, until I realized it was loud, dusty, poorly designed for airflow and wire management, and annoyingly bright at night. This case was a Civic with ground lighting and a huge spoiler. The new case is more like a Tesla.

Which of Fractal Design's cases is that, and about how much did it cost?

Fractal Design R4, and I think I paid about $120 for it at a Microcenter. You can probably get it for cheaper online.

Aesthetics are hardly a fixed point, though. And I could argue for the high point of aircraft aesthetics being in the past as the #1 criterion is cost now. For example, Concorde. (For military aircraft aesthetics I'd pick the EE Lightning, the Avro Vulcan, and the B-2, the iPhone of bombers).

Arguably car aesthetics peaked in the past too - perhaps in the 1960s (e.g. Jaguar E-type). Certainly it is somewhat a matter of taste, but modern car designers also have restrictions that older ones didn't, such as pedestrian safety requirements.

I think it's only partially true. Technology products may get pretty depending on who is the consumer. Computers, phones and cars get nice exterior design, because the "general public" uses them, and they are, as you said, sold on looks.

But consider industrial machines and buildings: mining machinery, electronics assembly lines, car factories and oil mining platforms. No matter how mature an industry branch is, machines are not being built to look nice. And warehouse buildings are just huge, gray, ugly-as-hell boxes. This is because there are many other constraints, machinery gets expensive, and there's simply no use for aesthetics.

So I think that spaceships may get nice exterior design if a lot of people (think millions) is going to be buying them. If the consumer group will be small, we will get aesthetics closer to cargo trains. Which, in my opinion, is awesome anyway.

And yes, I too think that ISS looks great as it is.

There is still some level of aesthetic consideration given to industrial equipment.

Compare the sleekness of the cab and bodywork on a new frontloader with that of an 80's model.

New: http://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/Caterpillar/C10346217?$cc-g$

Old: https://core-assetnation.netdna-ssl.com/auction_media/57245/...

Most industrial machines have reached a point of utility that there has to be a way to signal "this is the new one" because we are wired to think that "new" means "better".

Some of the frontloader's sleekness is aesthetic, but it's also more functional, with a better view for the driver and no distracting bars in his front FOV.

Maybe this is now changing with the planes:

After flying a few of the newer Airbuses, I can tell you that now when I search for a flight I look what kind of plane is flying, and if there is the chance to fly those, I gladly pay the difference. Not sure in USA, but here in Europe we have a solid mix of Airbuses and Boings so there is plenty to choose from.

Haven't flown the new Dreamliner. Is it worth it?

The flat screens are better and I think there were power plugs, the first I've seen so far. I'm not the biggest fan of the electronically dimmed windows since you can't make it completely opaque. Other than that no big changes as far as I remember.

flew on one of these a few times and the flat screens were shit. constant issues with touch sensitivity and responsiveness. on one flight the screen kept having random phantom touch inputs, which was an issue because I was trying to sleep and it kept waking me up. I had to tape the inflight magazine over it.

Not sure why you're being downvoted, I had exactly the same issue with the screen powering up in the middle of the night due to phantom touch inputs as well.

I had the same issue with the flat-screens on a 777-300ER. It was especially annoying because my wife and I were flying with our two young children and it kept waking them up.

good hack!

The flat screens are airline dependent. They were fantastic on Norwegian.

Overall I'm a fan of the Dreamliner (only 2 flights, a roundtrip on Norwegian). Seats were reasonably comfortable, even for economy on a budget airline. The big windows are nice. It was definitely quieter and (placebo?) the air did feel less gross.

Downsides: The arm rest didn't fully rise out of the way, so it's no good for sleeping on your partner's shoulder. The not-fully-dimming windows were a little annoying, but also really neat.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com