I like it boring. I get to customise a blank slate how I want. I really rather not have things in my life that are by someone else’s interpretation of “good” design. Ending up with more shit like my Dyson, or a modem trying to be the centrepiece of the living area…
Calling the big grey bezels of old TVs stylish is certainly an interesting take.
While your average early/mid 2000’s CRT TV is certainly not stylish, I do appreciate the buttons and convenient access to a set of inputs and the headphone jack. Today’s TVs are all form over function, which is especially annoying since the form is just a black slab.
Yeah, and personally, I don’t feel any wish to go back to skeuomorphism. It is funny to look back to and feel some nostalgia, but I think it would look cheap now if they did it like 15 years ago. Maybe iOS’ glassy-ui will create some elements that people like about it, but they luckily did not move back to busy ui element backgrounds.
I do partially agree with his buttons and app-points. I dislike how we are forced to download apps for everything, including the questionable tracking software.
Boring is cheap. Look at the way houses and apartments are being built now. Soviet Bloc Block Housing. No need for architects if the preexisting plans are pre-approved.
Yay capitalism.
Edit: a lot of people are missing the nuance. Surprise.
Soviet Bloc Block Housing
Yep, 35 storeys and 400 units of plain beige whatever.
But you’re missing the value of the modern mixed-use building. They just finished one nearby and it’s insane:
- ground-floor light commercial - a pizza place, a daycare and I think a pet store in there so far
- parking is secure and underground, with a loading bay,
- 2 floors of professional - physios and notaries and some ad-hoc wework space
- 30 floors of apartments
- an entire floor of guest space - airBnB units, essentially - and common play-space.
All these pictures are accurate as I remember from the tour:
The units will look more familiar if you’ve been to Northern Europe, but a bit bigger. We looked at a 1150sqft 3bd unit with huge triple-pane windows and - 2024 building code - A/C built-in. If you don’t count a garage - underground parking - the bigger ones are like small ranchers stacked on one another – in concrete, so you don’t notice you have neighbours.
They’re not Bloc blocks; they put a few of these together and they have a small city.
except at least the commie blocks were affordable lol
“cheap to build” meant “cheap to rent”, not “our housing company is making record-breaking profits! 😃”
There were not “affordable”, they were allocated. One could somehow improve the chance of being “given” that via connections.
And if you changed a workplace, it could be taken back. It wasn’t yours.
the apt i live in isnt mine either. plus i have to pay to live on it.
OK. Suppose so.
I’ve just been reminded that in the wonderful 70s people felt a bit similarly suppressed and the future dim as compared to 60s as we do now as compared to 00s.
Nothing is new.
What is important, though, is that nothing existing has been given to us be benevolent or harsh, kind or cruel gods. It has all been built by people just like us.
To dream and to work are the most important parts.
Been reading Vonnegut again and it’s astonishing how he’s calling out the exact same societal ills we have today. Only thing he missed was global warming and that’s because many in the 70s thought we were headed for an ice age.
Function > durability > cost > tons of other things > “interestingness”
Its good. Just how laptop has been solved so is smartphone right now. I like my tiny black bricks, keep your corporate style to yourself.
Picked a great time to follow my dream as an industrial designer, only to graduate during COVID and realize that not a single company actually cares to improve the user experience of their products or systems.
Feels like I got a more exclusive and more expensive art degree.
Seems like a good time to plug one of my favored youtoobers, famed former NBA player Drew Gooden:
Booo. Thought it was legit.
Drew is legit. No, he never actually played in the NBA. The name confusion is just one of his long-running jokes.
Edit: clarity
Samsung Gleam. That was peak cellphone.
Ulefone’s got your back for weird phones.
Rather Unihertz. They basically have just the unusual phones.
Currently I have Ulefone Armor 24, but I’d want something like Oukitel WP100 Titan. Even larger and crazier.
Look at that 33Ah thing:
Almost brick size now. It’s so ridiculous I want it. After all, what I have now isn’t far from if, it’s just that this is even bigger.
3.6cm (1.4 inch) thick, 877g (1.93lbs) heavy.
But somehow it still can’t fit a headphone jack and MicroSD card slot, so that’s a no for me.
