
Aesthetics Send A Message - mattmaroon
http://mattmaroon.com/?p=472
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Alex3917
"spending large amounts of money on products to impress women is a not very
effective thing to do."

[citation needed]

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tel
Good design is prescient of an audience, yes. Often, however, good design
applies widely to audiences it was never intended for.

For instance, OXO brand kitchen supplies were designed to be big and easy to
handle for the arthritic. I own a lot of their supplies because they're sturdy
and easy to handle. I never use it and think "Wow. I'm feeling arthritic
today"

Similarly, Apple. Designing to make computing cool and succeeding wildly
probably means the design will apply to a large number of unintended audiences
as well. If you wear a suit and are professional, a glowing apple is still
going to look better than a clunky black box.

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mattmaroon
You buy OXO brand kitchen supplies (as do I) because they're good and they
don't cost $2,500.

When you make something that costs $6, you don't have to focus as much. Also,
regardless of how they started out, their products no longer seem aimed at
arthritic people.

Btw, get one of their liquiseal mugs. Amazing.

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axod
"Resellers say MacBook Air sales aren’t as brisk as original MacBook"

And by that you take away "The air is a sales dud"??? The air is like a
Ferrari. Of course you don't sell as many Ferrari's as fords. Why would that
be surprising?

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unalone
I feel like I'm disagreeing with everything Matt says this week, but: look at
a computer like the MacBook Pro, which is fairly thin. It doesn't look like
something you could destroy easily. I'm sure you could make a mini computer
that didn't look fragile but that DID have a better aesthetic design than the
Lenovo. It's an unattractive computer for everybody out of the "ugly is good"
mentality. The fact that most corporations still have that mentality goes
along with the fact that a ton of companies don't "get" a lot of things and
make inferior products. Pretty defensive post on your part.

And, not to say this for the third time or anything, but your web site is
broken, links don't work, and the URL you yourself gave us up there is broken
and redirects to the front page. You're using Wordpress, theming is not hard,
please fix it so I can browse your archives.

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mattmaroon
Ah, damnit. Thanks. It wasn't the theme, it was that damn WP-Super Cache.
Doesn't seem to play nice with my site no matter how hard I try.

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briansmith
The link to your RSS feed doesn't work either.

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mattmaroon
I think feedburner just needs to update next time I post. The plugin seems to
have also borked the feed and feedburner is responding oddly (though my
updates still come through.)

I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for the tip.

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ojbyrne
This just seems like a thinly disguised "I hate Macs" argument.

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mattmaroon
It's more a "I can see why someone would prefer the design of something else
over a Mac" argument. I guess the difference is too subtle.

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maxklein
Read your title - of course Aesthetics send a message! Of course business men
want laptops that look like they are designed for business. Of course people
have different tastes.

This is not worth a blog post, it's just so frickin obvious.

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mattmaroon
It didn't seem to be obvious to DHH.

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tyohn
I have to wonder do the aesthetics of your MAC make you as a programmer more
effective?

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river_styx
Of course not. It really boils down to this: some people like for their
possessions to be beautiful, and others don't care. Neither group can see
things from the viewpoint of the other, hence this ongoing pointless flamery.

It has nothing to do with impressing girls or anyone else. It's a personal
preference. I'm particular; I like for my things to look a certain way. All of
us have our own proclivities, so why don't we all just shut the hell up about
this already? How does it harm Matt Maroon if I "spend too much" for an Apple
product? Just tell yourself that I'm a moron and move on.

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tyohn
I love great design but in the case of "tools" if the design doesn't help the
function and the productivity of the user - and there is something else out
there cheaper that does (even though its "ugly") I have to go with
productivity.

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maurycy
OK, I agree. But what about us, poor folks who use Apple products merely to
have decent Rails environment, TextMate and OmniGraffle? who don't want to
spend ages dealing with Linux packages or configuring wifi (though, spent few
years using Gentoo, Debian and others)? I worry we have no choice.

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gojomo
In the speaker's lounge at the recent O'Reilly OSCON, all the laptops I saw
were either Apples or Thinkpads. They both have appealing aesthetics for their
audiences.

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cbetz
Thank You! I'm glad someone understands that the Macbook and the Thinkpad are
both well designed and highly functional but represent distinctly different
aesthetic viewpoints. I personally choose Thinkpad, but I can understand why
someone might not appreciate its minimalist nature and prefer a Macbook
instead.

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scott_s
I'm typing this on a Thinkpad T40, and I think Macbooks are more minimalist in
design.

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jfarmer
I think there's a pretty good argument that spending money on products to
impress women is perhaps the most effective thing to do.

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mattmaroon
Even if that were true, you'd be better of buying a cheap laptop and spending
the money on clothing or pickup artist seminars. Either would be more
effective.

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prospero
"I see you've noticed my laptop. Most women do. They can't look away from its
sleek contours and the power of its dual cores. If you want to touch it, I'll
understand. Now, can I buy you a drink?"

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mattmaroon
I would pay good money to watch someone enact that.

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prospero
Buy me a Macbook Air and enough alcohol, and I'm your man.

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mattmaroon
Not that good money, but a few drinks for sure.

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brlewis
My world still revolves around girls, but I'm posting this from a Lenovo
anyway. (More precisely, one woman and three girls.)

