As a designer, programmer, and music engraver/editor, I’ve always paid for all media I’ve consumed because I’ve strongly believed creators deserve to be paid.
But after the Napster, Ticketmaster, Netflix, and dozens of other egregious examples of corporate sadism, I’m proud to sail the high seas now.
I don’t think it’s the isolation, but the endless beige monotony.
I didn’t mind my cubefarm when I was immersed in the cube, but it was hella depressing in the morning coming into that environment. Made me feel like a worn cog in the machine. Lunch, standing up to a beige hellscape, sucked all my creativity (which wasn’t great, as a designer).
Open floor plan, when that became the alternative, was worse, though.
Working from home is ideal. I haven’t been able to work for a few years, so maybe I’m out of touch, but I can’t fathom why anyone is against working from home, especially in software dev. It’s the best of all worlds – no office space fees, and most of us will work extra hours in our cosy environment.
e: I was more productive working from home than ever, and would even work outside hours without reporting it because I was just happy to be creating things. I dreamt about my project – in a good way – and implemented ideas like that. Why would a CEO who claims to have the slightest idea about things not want that, unless they’re an idiot?
e2: That’s not to devalue our worth – rereading this, I can see how it could read that way. What I’m saying is when your skills align well with what you like to do and you make a career in that, it’s a profitable combination; unfortunately, our whole economy is set up to select against that, which is a shame for all of us. Doubly so for the morons in charge.
A 12-pack fits perfectly in that bottom drawer. (I can vouch. Very handy for Friday night overtime code review.)
I appreciate your edit. I do promise that UXDers are doing their best to make your experience better, and that shareholders don’t have the level of input into design that it may seem when you’re angry at an interface for not behaving in the way you want.
At least at large companies, UXD teams don’t even know who the shareholders are, much less ever hear from them. If the interface isn’t serving you, it’s always because it’s serving a different (likely larger) use case that’s at odds with your use case. That sucks, but it’s not a corporate conspiracy. I’ve been in this industry for decades, and I’ve never seen that happen except at small companies where the owner barges into design meetings (that never happens at large companies because the owners are too busy to even know the names of the designers).
Yes, Steve Jobs was an asshole who was known to call low-level designers at 3am to demand a small change to an icon that somehow bent him, but he was a psychopath. That’s not how anyone else does things, and it had nothing to do with shareholders, just his own delusions about the colour blue. He also killed himself trying to fruit-ninja his cancer. He’s not a good barometer for the industry, or even Apple’s design, tbh. Designers often ignored him until he forgot and dog-squirrelled himself into the next thing.
What I’m saying is that if you hate a UI, it’s not likely because the company is trying to hurt you, but because the design is aimed at someone else or is just inferior.
Quick quibble:
at the heart of them all is that Apple makes their stuff harder to use by people used to other systems, on purpose.
As a UXD/usability and also software dev in both Windows and Mac OS software, I’d say Apple doesn’t make transition experiences harder on purpose. They try to make it as smooth as possible, whilst working within their own established design & dev standards, which is often the opposite of other companies’ philosophy.
Lesser-sought functions are nearly always changeable in settings or via terminal, and everything is easy to configure from the settings. That’s based on OS standards of not vomiting all options all over the UI (which is the polar opposite of Microsoft, so there’s some adjustment time yes. Seems the OS installer walkthrough/tutorials aren’t that effective.
I gave up on this conversation years ago.
Fine, for the sake of argument, I’m a liberal, because I don’t want to give you 45 extra minutes of my time in this comment section to try and explain the difference when I know you’ll ignore most of what I say anyhow, and derail us from the point I was actually trying to make. If I’m a liberal in your mind, so be it. My point stands.
We already have the technology to do this:
Groundbreaking technique makes skin transparent
No idea whether it would be safe for pregnancy, but you could probably stencil it on in flower or heart patterns, bedazzle the outline, ya know, really jazz it up.
Also, toddlers make for amazing meat shields. Nobody can deny that. What sort of monster would shoot you in the head when there’s a toddler protecting it? That’s just simple logic.
There’s nothing wrong with relying on one another so long as we can, you know, rely on one another.
That’s the whole point of society and why we’ve been so successful as a species. Division is our only real weakness.
I’m so insecure I always buy 2x any sticker I like in case I decide wrong. I have a drawer with backup stickers. I’m being completely serious.
My response isn’t showing because I’m a dipshit: I said:
I’m with you.
I don’t think I meant to delete my comment; I’ve been drinking too.
😊
I’m with you.
I don’t think I meant to delete my comment; I’ve been drinking too.
I’ve been in both positions – dirt poor and couldn’t get care, and also decently well-off (not rich) and still couldn’t get care, even with good insurance.
Now I’m destitute, partly because of health care debt, and am struggling to get any care at all. I seriously feel like the system actively wants me to die.
Also, it’s possible to be privileged and have your life wrecked by this system.
Just fucking imagine what it’s like to be underprivileged and never have a chance in the first place.
I assumed it was a stock photo. I never hold anything against faces I see in media, especially when they’re lit this professionally, because they’re often stock photos.
Your cat appears to have melted, and your wall outlet has gone italic. You may want to turn down the heat.
Everything was sticky, too. Sometimes you’d put your quarter in the rim above the existing quarter, then after like an hour and half a pizza later, you’d realise your family was alone in the place and nobody had approached the machine. You’d go back and try to pick up the quarters, but the placeholding one was basically glued to the glass by coke and who knows what, obviously having been there for weeks.
Kind of amazing the coin slot didn’t glue itself shut.