
There's no shame in looking good - brm
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1247-theres-no-shame-in-looking-good
======
sdurkin
Pretty is good. Ugly is bad. It has always, and will always be this way.

If you don't make beautiful products, its probably because you can't.

~~~
nonrecursive
I'm sure this conversation has been had on news.yc, but how do you account for
ugly ass sites like myspace, plenty of fish, and craigslist?

~~~
brlewis
Aesthetics speak. Craigslist says "cheap". MySpace says "My parents wouldn't
like this place and I can decorate it how I want". I don't know what
plentyoffish says.

~~~
dissenter
rationalization / post-hoc. If you were setting out to make the next MySpace
or Craigslist, would you consciously decide to make it ugly as a competitive
advantage? Ugly designs happen by accident [re: neglect] and in spite of the
underlying site's success. By the time the site is successful it's too
late/unnecessary to change it.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_If you were setting out to make the next MySpace or Craigslist, would you
consciously decide to make it ugly as a competitive advantage?_

Sure. But the word you're looking for is _functional_ , not ugly. The ugliness
is just a side effect.

Craigslist was criticized for being too plain from the moment it was built.
But it's buried a lot of better-Photoshopped competitors.

------
rokhayakebe
One should not choose between great aesthetics and usefulness. One should seek
both.

~~~
t0pj
_One should not choose between great aesthetics and usefulness. One should
seek both._

Sun Tzu, is that you? :)

------
jonmc12
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_follows_function>

    
    
        "It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
        Of all things physical and metaphysical,
        Of all things human and all things super-human,
        Of all true manifestations of the head,
        Of the heart, of the soul,
        That the life is recognizable in its expression,
        That form ever follows function. This is the law.”

------
mattmaroon
He totally missed my point. I blogged a response.

~~~
DabAsteroid
This is what you wrote in your response:

 _spending large amounts of money on products, be they sports cars or inferior
laptops, to impress women is a ... (... not very effective) thing to do_

Why do you think so? What would you think of the phrase, "Sexual selection and
the Macbook Air?"

[http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/08/03/sexual-selection-and-
how...](http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/08/03/sexual-selection-and-how-the-
peacock-got-its-tail)

 _In many animals, sexual selection takes the form of elaborate ornamentation
- often in just the male of the species. Two well-known examples are a
peacock’s feathers and the brilliant red plumage of the male cardinal.
Scientists like Robert Trivers have theorized that in most species it is the
male that competes for female access because the female makes a larger
contribution to the offspring. In one experiment, scientists were able to vary
the relative contributions to offspring in Katydids and they observed that
when the males’ contribution was more valuable, females began to compete for
males.

However, there is significant cost to these ornaments. So why would the genes
that direct the growth of ornamental structures not reduce reproductive
fitness? After all, the energy that a peacock uses to produce his tail could
be used to find a mate or produce sperm. In this example, there are two
hypotheses about sexual selection. One is that the ornament is a signal that
the male is healthy. After all, a sickly male can’t produce and maintain the
elaborate ornamentation._

~~~
mattmaroon
Sexual selection is generally about physical traits, i.e. being taller, having
blue eyes. (As Wikipedia says: the theory proposed by Charles Darwin that
states that certain evolutionary traits can be explained by intraspecific
competition.)

I'm not sure if purchased items would count, though they might have similar
effects. And maybe sexual selection accounts for the gene that people who buy
stuff because a U2 song was in the commercial possess that the rest of us
don't. Nonetheless, it's still sort of a hack, an easy but very inefficient
way to accomplish the goal.

Regardless, even if you wanted to go the hacky route, you'd be better off
buying a normal laptop for $1,500 less and spending the money on other things.
Get a better haircut (only $30-$40), buy some nicer clothes, get a gym
membership (and actually go there), buy How To Win Friends and Influence
People, take a photography class, etc. Basically better yourself. You'd be
amazed how far even $1,000 can go.

Or spend $500 of it on a nice watch, go to Vegas, find a couple cute girls
sitting at a blackjack table, and go start plunking down $200 bets. You've got
at least 5 of them if you run bad, and I bet they start talking to you by the
third. I'm still shocked at how well that works.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_intraspecific competition ... I'm not sure if purchased items would count_

You are not sure if it could be any more difficult to afford a more-expensive
item than to afford a less-expensive one?

    
    
      .
    

_you'd be better off ... spending the money on other things._

How would making life easy for oneself advertise that one is so genetically-
fit that one need not bother making life easy for oneself? Are you meaning to
imply that fertile female humans are generally unaware that mined-diamonds,
Mercedes, and Macbook Airs are more expensive than their functional-value
equivalents (synthetic-diamonds, Lexuses, and Lenovo 300s, respectively)?

According to the theory, the point is to visibly make life hard for oneself.
To wit:

<http://images.google.com/images?q=ricer>

<http://www.pulldoggies.com>

Perhaps you are familiar with the phrase, "Trashed for overtopping." It refers
to the hanging of weights (trash) around the necks of the fastest dogs in a
hunting pack. Buying a Macbook Air is a form of trashing oneself. Pulling it
out in a cafe makes it visible. One could also walk around all day with a
backpack full of bricks. There are myriad ways of visibly trashing oneself.

<http://images.google.com/images?q=mohawk>

~~~
mattmaroon
It doesn't count because a MacBook isn't an evolutionary trait. The whole idea
behind sexual selection is that some genes are more fit than others. Has
nothing to do with possessions.

Also, the Air is slightly cheaper than a Lenovo X301, and Mercedes and Lexus
seemed pretty comparable for the same class back when I was looking.

~~~
dcminter
This is not correct. Unless you think that female bowerbirds are just
shallow...?

~~~
DabAsteroid
Indeed, sexual selection among bowerbirds revolves around the female rating
the possessions of the male:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowerbird#Mating_behaviour>

 _In a striking example of what is known as the "transfer effect," bowerbird
species that build the most elaborate bowers are dull in color and show little
variation between male and female, whereas in bowerbird species with less
elaborate bowers the males have bright plumage. Presumably, evolution has
"transferred" the reproductive benefits of bright male plumage (common among
polygamous birds) to elaborate bowers, allowing males to display their fitness
by means other than physical characteristics that would appear to attract
predation._

The female bowerbird is a material girl.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_Are_a_Girl%27s_Best_Fr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_Are_a_Girl%27s_Best_Friend)

------
rbanffy
It seems pretty obvious DHH uses Macs to impress girls on Starbucks. That is
why he finds the Thinkpad comparison so offensive.

Repeat with me: It´s just a computer. It´s just a tool. It´s not a fashion
accessory.

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pavelludiq
Maybe because of my exposure to punk culture and art, i have a very strange
taste, i mean just look at this:

[http://www.bside-
rock.com/IMG/jpg/Sex_PistolsNever_Mind_The_...](http://www.bside-
rock.com/IMG/jpg/Sex_PistolsNever_Mind_The_BollocksFrontal.jpg)

i know its one of the ugliest album covers ever made, but its still one of my
favorite peaces of design(or absence of design). Being good looking and being
beautifull are not always the same thing, sometimes you need substance, and
like the punk of the 70's, you can do without the looks(those guys
deliberately made everything ugly), but you can't do without the substance.
And yes, i like ThinkPads.

------
dimitar
thinkpads are sexy - they are like a lady dressed in a black dress.

~~~
subwindow
> like a lady dressed in a black dress

..with bright yellow recesses and red knobs all over the place.

The Thinkpad looks like a sexy lady in a black dress, but one who took meth
for 10 years and is now sickly and diseased.

~~~
dimitar
How about red lips and golden earrings? When I touch the trackpoint - a fully
inadequate name by the way, I feel the computer feels me, like touching a
living creature. The body also feels like skin.

And when I am not feeling romantic TP are really comfortable to work with..

~~~
iuguy
You sir, need professional help.

------
thomasmallen
_And that's why we won't listen to our users about our applications. Better
that they be pretty than functional_

~~~
henning
37Signals listens, they just act on very little of what they hear. Sometimes
it works out well, sometimes not.

Certainly they can't implement even all, or even a majority, of the requests
they get.

------
froo
I think perhaps James has missed the point. It's a case of perspective and
he's read too much into it.

Last time I looked up this site was called _Hacker News_ , not _Hipster
Fashion Daily_ \- or any other derivative you care to come up with.

It's nice to have nice things, I don't think anybody here would disagree. It's
really nice to have nice things that work really well, but when it comes to
these kinds of objects and the primary readership of this site, computers are
tools in 95% of situations.

I think sacrificing function over form when you're talking about a tool is
plain silly... it would be like trying to compare the pro's and con's of
buying a ferrari over a pickup truck. They each have their target customer.

------
chrysb
I think everyone is missing the point here. Macs get people laid. If your face
isn't beautiful, accessorize yourself with beautiful things.

------
sabat
Appearance communicates. That's why, for instance, graphic design is not
"making things pretty". It's visual communication.

