Notice I said that pretty is good, but not the only good.
Myspace and Craigslist 'can't' make beautiful products, Myspace because that would detract from user personalization, and Craigslist because they never hired the design muscle because it works well enough.
The grand-parent is merely suggesting that Pretty is good and ugly is bad. NOT saying that is the only thing that matters. So your comment is not a refutation. (and hence, I see no reason for sarcasm either.)
I disagree that craigslist does what it does well. I think it does it extremely poorly. They've managed to get a huge critical mass though which means people will deal with the flaws because its where the content is.
People don't have an emotional connection to classified ads or search results. This was an epiphany for me which I detail here: http://ourdoings.com/2008-02
Yes. Nobody sets out to make ugly things. It's just that if they CAN'T make it look good, they justify it by saying that it doesn't matter how good it looks.
All due respect to Matt Maroon, as always, but it's SUCH a snotty thing to dismiss a line of products because they're pretty. It's not only backwards thinking, it's snotty, too.
Most people, i think, like both. Problem is when some company in Cupertino, CA tries to pass off crap using pretty packaging. Nobody likes to wake up one day next to a fruit colored laptop.
I use Apple's MacBook Pro, and it runs quickly, its programs are all aesthetically pleasing, and it's an absolute joy to use. I didn't get an Air because I plan on doing some pretty intensive stuff on here, but from what i've seen of it it does a great job of being very fast for basic processes while looking beautiful.
I haven't seen a single Apple product that I think is crap, not in a decade. I think that a lot of them could be BETTER, but Apple absolutely cares about making the best product that they can, and they've shown it time and time again. Also, for the record, I LIKED the original iMac. I like the new ones better, but I think that iMac was great when it first came out. So unless you've got a quantitative argument against Apple, close it: I don't care to hear insults against a company that I like without any sort of backing-up.
I must have been the only one paying attention last few weeks during the iphone complaints. Apple is fun, i imagine, when you don't care about OSS, drm, or anything that Jobs has a tight fist clenched around.
You may have a different requirement from a product (OSS, etc. - I myself prefer to use Linux because of the open-ness) while others may have different (wanting it to look good, do the common things without a hassle) - but why is that a reason to say "passing off crap"? I will agree to the iPhone complaints, so they botched up the launch by sending out a half-baked product. The 2.1 update seems to have fixed a lot of problems for many people. The iPhone is driven by software a whole lot more than other phones are, and so gets updated at a very high rate. That is a good thing. How many phones you know keep adding features to themselves or fixing their own bugs via software updates? Or do other phones just not have any bugs or annoyances?
I will admit, though, that Apple tends to go overboard with its cheesy marketing tricks and ploys many times. They should let the products speak more. In most cases, they just do.
The "twice as fast" and "half the price" ads were rather disingenuous. The "most advanced operating system" -- what? that's true only if you consider how great it looks. Otherwise, we can easily rattle off many Unix variants which kick OS X's ass when it comes to performance. Xcode: "the best IDE ever". MobileMe: "you can't believe this is a web-app, unheard-of usability in a web-app!" It just doesn't stop. They go overboard.
As for the "I'm a Mac" ads, they are not that bad at all.
Disclosure: I own an iPhone and am madly in love with it. I also own a new iMac, and love its looks and would like to make OS X work for me, but have not been very successful at that. Perhaps because I am just used to Linux.
The "twice as fast" I agree you with. Xcode I've heard nothing about. MobileMe I agree with them: it's beautiful unlike any other web app I've used. The service rocks too.
The operating system is absolutely the most advanced. The fact that it gives you so much power without any tinkering is stunning. Corner-window commands, the vast keyboard commands, and the incredible efficiency of Spotlight are my favorite quick things to point out.
The iPhone is owned by wireless carriers first, Apple second. No matter how Apple feels about OSS or DRM, they still have to treat the iPhone as a signed-and-sealed-and-dictated black box, because that's what the carriers demand in order for Apple to be let onto their networks. If they only had the iPod Touch (and had built their own VoIP suite on top as the "phone" part, say) they would likely be taking a very different approach with the App Store.
It will very be interesting to see how this changes once Verizon opens up their networks to all products that prove their compatibility. Hopefully it will be much better then the locked down equipment they currently sell.
The only network I get home reception from won't even include flashes on the vast majority of their camera phones.
Yeah. I am pretty sure Apple´s iPhone business would collapse the moment they decide to sell unlocked phones to anyone who wants them, anywhere in the world. It would also not resist if Apple decided to allow people to install software from any third party phone owners wanted to.
With all the demand for iPhones, the only reason to this closedness is maximizing profit at the expense of end-user flexibility.
You seem to forget that AT&T had to create an entire new system for handling voice messages just to let Apple host their phone. You also forget that Apple refuses to compromise their design, which means that they needed AT&
T specifically because Verizon's a dick about stuff like that.
Usually Apple isn't against making tons of money, so I think it makes sense that there's a logical reason behind their actions.
Does the same logic apply to T-Mobile? As Apple's exclusive iPhone provider in Germany, T-Mobile must already have both a sufficient voice message system and an adequate deference to Apple's sense of design. Why not allow them to be an iPhone provider in the U.S. as well?
The truth is that Apple feels it can make much more money from exclusive contracts with the carriers than it can selling the phones directly to consumers.
The iPhone is owned by wireless carriers first, Apple second.
And yet Microsoft produces a more open mobile platform. If you believe AT&T is dictating the abusive iPhone terms, I'd recommend you lay off of the Jobs Kool-Aid for a while. It's effecting your perception.
Exactly. The tech industry has had so much of the Microsoft monopoly that they're anxious to run out of the arms of one dictator and don't even care that they're headed straight into the arms of another.
Unfortunately, trading Gates for Jobs is like trading Mussolini for Hitler.
Even the original Apple TV? You could watch rented videos from iTunes on it, but couldn't purchase. It required a HD hookup, but had no HD video. It sold like 8 units total.
If that wasn't crap, I don't know what was. Even the much improved version is still a misfire, but probably not crap.
And as much as the performance of the MBA is derided on here.. It's probably better performing than my thinkpad (Due to being much newer). Has what you do in the last 2 years or so really changed that much needing extra performance (On your laptop?!)
Even when I see people using things I dislike (anybody heard of Twilight? That book is the scourge of intelligent life), I find fault not in the person who likes it but in the people that chose to make that product available (in that book's case, the publishing company). People can like whatever they want, and while that might change my opinion of the person, I don't blame the product for it.
Whatever the merits of how people make decisions, this is the market.
I've found the most effective way to deal with it is to aim for a very simple base design, and add design elements iteratively rather than attempting to build a complex design and forcing it into place. A few highly polished and professional graphics make a site seem polished, and are easier to get working across multiple browsers.
Tradeoffs. Pretty has costs, in one form or another, and each of these firms takes these costs into account.
The original walkman was ugly as sin, but it was cheap and reliable. Had it been beautiful, it would have been even better, but it couldn't, without costing more.
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.
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.
I disagree. As other's are pointing out, a site's design says a message, and having an ugly design might send the right message.
Dove is using this idea in their "Campaign for Natural Beauty" (http://www.dove.us/#/cfrb/) . The models aren't ugly, but they also aren't the usual perfect-looking models.
When I was in grade school, I remember there were anti-smoking and tobacco posters on the wall of severely aged, sick looking people along with some text about how "chewing cost me my mandible". Those were examples of actual human ugliness, and they worked.
So that's all to say, ugly could be part of your message. Which isn't really a novel idea.
What's more interesting, in my opinion, is when something seems bad from a usability standpoint and still succeeds. plentyoffish.com fits under this category.
MySpace allows people to customize their profiles and while it may be ugly, it's only because the people who design them don't really know any better. They're still learning how to design.
"Pretty is good. Ugly is bad. It has always, and will always be this way."
Pretty is often good. Ugly is even more often bad. It has often been that way, and it will often be that way.
"If you don't make beautiful products, its probably because you can't."
Or because your product is wooden pencils, or bulldozers, or parachutes, or test tubes, or transistors, or pillows, or ammunition. Various things resist beauty enough that all you get is the elegance of something that's efficient and reliable, which is not the usual meaning of beauty.
(Yes, I remember our host's SR-71 example. And good sailboats look nice too. But efficient submarines and high speed rockets aren't particularly pretty. Once simple design constraints become too extreme --- streamlining in this case --- it can become hard to satisfy the constraints in an interesting way.)
Various other things like books are borderline cases. A well-done book may have more appealing aesthetic touches than a well-done wooden pencil. But not so many more, because mostly its presentation should keep out of the way of the words. A particularly beautiful fire alarm or fire extinguisher is not necessarily a good idea, either.
The key fact that DHH misses is that the Thinkpad and the Macbooks are both good-looking and functional. It's the same hardware. The Macbook has a glossy finish, the Thinkpad has a matte finish and a roll cage.
"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.”
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.
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..
Don´t think about ladies in black dresses. Think about a black Land-Rover. Not pretty, but very rugged and functional. It will take abuse no Macbook could ever tolerate.
The only reason to buy a Mac is to run MacOS (and it´s a good one). But it´s not enough for me: I got used to manage my software with a package manager and Mac software management is jurassic in comparison.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
sexual selection ... Has nothing to do with possessions.
Income is a heritable trait, as is socio-economic status (SES). SES is partly a measure of possessions. Higher income allows one to consume possessions, and it has been posited that it is possible to conspicuously consume, thus allowing sexual selection in regards to income and SES to occur.
Why I can't lust after the Lexus
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/11/1997
It is good value, looks OK, handles well. But unlike its sexy competitors, it's just not desirable, finds Peter Dron ...
What does Lexus offer against these icons, especially the BMW (frequently cited as Lexus's target), whose length it matches to the millimetre?
Value for money is a good starting point. ...
The BMW may not offer better value, and in most objective measurements it is not a significantly better car. But it is a more desirable car than the Lexus. The same may be said of the Mercedes, Jaguar and Audi.
Income is not a heritable trait in an evolutionary context because it's not a biological trait, thus it has nothing to do with sexual selection, as a biologist would define it. And even if it did, I don't think a woman looks at a guy with a MacBook and thinks "old money". I'll ask a few to be sure.
And Lexus is similarly priced in any given class (for instance, entry level sedan, in which they're both around $32k) in which they compete. They just don't have anything (currently, one's coming soon) in that high end, though their LS hybrid does cost more than a lower-end S-Class.
11 year old articles might not be the best source of information.
Income is not a heritable trait in an evolutionary context because it's not a biological trait
If you are meaning to imply that there can be such a thing as a heritable trait that is not biological, perhaps you should define what you mean by the term "biological trait". What do you mean when you say that income is not a biological trait?
FYI, here is a dictionary (M-W Unabridged) definition of heritability:
the proportion of observed variation in a particular trait (as intelligence) that can be attributed to inherited genetic factors in contrast to environmental ones
the X300 weighs 0.1 pounds less, comes with a 64 GB SDD by default and offers more configuration options, such as an internal DVD burner, up to 4 GB of memory, a second battery, cellular broadband internet and a wireless USB card. The X300 and MacBook Air went through several price cuts, but teh Lenovo notebook is currently available for substantially less money. ...
Lenovo says that the new [X301] processor and memory deliver 20% more performance. Also new is the DisplayPort support. The 13.3” LED backlit screen remains unchanged, but it still offers more working resolution (1440 x 900) than the MacBook Air (1280 x 800).
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.
"If you're buying a laptop to impress girls at Starbucks (in which case, you might want to do some serious self-evaluation) this ain't the one for you. If you want to get things done while traveling, you can't beat it."
Well, that's what you said.
I suppose comments on HN are taken seriously and considered well thought-out comprehensing your complete thought. Ok, that's naive.
But it sounds insulting to say they need self-evaluation (which is what I think sparked the post).
Assuming that people purchase Macs just as a kind of sexual signal is infantile thinking that projects your own motivations onto others. What you think people think is not the same as what they think.
I buy Macs because they help me get more shit done. End of story.
83 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 157 ms ] threadIf you don't make beautiful products, its probably because you can't.
Notice I said that pretty is good, but not the only good.
Myspace and Craigslist 'can't' make beautiful products, Myspace because that would detract from user personalization, and Craigslist because they never hired the design muscle because it works well enough.
MySpace is popular with the same personalizing crowd that would put stickers on their MacBooks.
All due respect to Matt Maroon, as always, but it's SUCH a snotty thing to dismiss a line of products because they're pretty. It's not only backwards thinking, it's snotty, too.
Edit: Too soon?
I haven't seen a single Apple product that I think is crap, not in a decade. I think that a lot of them could be BETTER, but Apple absolutely cares about making the best product that they can, and they've shown it time and time again. Also, for the record, I LIKED the original iMac. I like the new ones better, but I think that iMac was great when it first came out. So unless you've got a quantitative argument against Apple, close it: I don't care to hear insults against a company that I like without any sort of backing-up.
I will admit, though, that Apple tends to go overboard with its cheesy marketing tricks and ploys many times. They should let the products speak more. In most cases, they just do.
As for the "I'm a Mac" ads, they are not that bad at all.
Disclosure: I own an iPhone and am madly in love with it. I also own a new iMac, and love its looks and would like to make OS X work for me, but have not been very successful at that. Perhaps because I am just used to Linux.
The operating system is absolutely the most advanced. The fact that it gives you so much power without any tinkering is stunning. Corner-window commands, the vast keyboard commands, and the incredible efficiency of Spotlight are my favorite quick things to point out.
It will very be interesting to see how this changes once Verizon opens up their networks to all products that prove their compatibility. Hopefully it will be much better then the locked down equipment they currently sell.
The only network I get home reception from won't even include flashes on the vast majority of their camera phones.
With all the demand for iPhones, the only reason to this closedness is maximizing profit at the expense of end-user flexibility.
Usually Apple isn't against making tons of money, so I think it makes sense that there's a logical reason behind their actions.
The truth is that Apple feels it can make much more money from exclusive contracts with the carriers than it can selling the phones directly to consumers.
And yet Microsoft produces a more open mobile platform. If you believe AT&T is dictating the abusive iPhone terms, I'd recommend you lay off of the Jobs Kool-Aid for a while. It's effecting your perception.
Unfortunately, trading Gates for Jobs is like trading Mussolini for Hitler.
DRM sucks, but the iPod has proven that the presence of DRM doesn't mean a product is crap.
If that wasn't crap, I don't know what was. Even the much improved version is still a misfire, but probably not crap.
And as much as the performance of the MBA is derided on here.. It's probably better performing than my thinkpad (Due to being much newer). Has what you do in the last 2 years or so really changed that much needing extra performance (On your laptop?!)
I must have been born without the desire to dictate to people why they should want things.
Even when I see people using things I dislike (anybody heard of Twilight? That book is the scourge of intelligent life), I find fault not in the person who likes it but in the people that chose to make that product available (in that book's case, the publishing company). People can like whatever they want, and while that might change my opinion of the person, I don't blame the product for it.
I've found the most effective way to deal with it is to aim for a very simple base design, and add design elements iteratively rather than attempting to build a complex design and forcing it into place. A few highly polished and professional graphics make a site seem polished, and are easier to get working across multiple browsers.
The Lenovo has a better design aesthetic for getting people to pay $2,500+ for an ultra portable laptop.
The original walkman was ugly as sin, but it was cheap and reliable. Had it been beautiful, it would have been even better, but it couldn't, without costing more.
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.
Dove is using this idea in their "Campaign for Natural Beauty" (http://www.dove.us/#/cfrb/) . The models aren't ugly, but they also aren't the usual perfect-looking models.
When I was in grade school, I remember there were anti-smoking and tobacco posters on the wall of severely aged, sick looking people along with some text about how "chewing cost me my mandible". Those were examples of actual human ugliness, and they worked.
So that's all to say, ugly could be part of your message. Which isn't really a novel idea.
What's more interesting, in my opinion, is when something seems bad from a usability standpoint and still succeeds. plentyoffish.com fits under this category.
http://www.myspace.com/
Facebook has made serious inroads largely due to better design (in terms of aesthetics and usability) than myspace.
Plentyoffish, craigslist, and Wikipedia are ugly ass sites that seem pretty much unassailable though.
Pretty is often good. Ugly is even more often bad. It has often been that way, and it will often be that way.
"If you don't make beautiful products, its probably because you can't."
Or because your product is wooden pencils, or bulldozers, or parachutes, or test tubes, or transistors, or pillows, or ammunition. Various things resist beauty enough that all you get is the elegance of something that's efficient and reliable, which is not the usual meaning of beauty.
(Yes, I remember our host's SR-71 example. And good sailboats look nice too. But efficient submarines and high speed rockets aren't particularly pretty. Once simple design constraints become too extreme --- streamlining in this case --- it can become hard to satisfy the constraints in an interesting way.)
Various other things like books are borderline cases. A well-done book may have more appealing aesthetic touches than a well-done wooden pencil. But not so many more, because mostly its presentation should keep out of the way of the words. A particularly beautiful fire alarm or fire extinguisher is not necessarily a good idea, either.
Sun Tzu, is that you? :)
Let's fight about something else.
http://www.bside-rock.com/IMG/jpg/Sex_PistolsNever_Mind_The_...
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.
..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.
And when I am not feeling romantic TP are really comfortable to work with..
The only reason to buy a Mac is to run MacOS (and it´s a good one). But it´s not enough for me: I got used to manage my software with a package manager and Mac software management is jurassic in comparison.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/arts/television/04conan.ht...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/apples-mobileme-meltdown/...
Certainly they can't implement even all, or even a majority, of the requests they get.
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.
Repeat with me: It´s just a computer. It´s just a tool. It´s not a fashion accessory.
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
Maybe you mean "heritable trait".
sexual selection ... Has nothing to do with possessions.Income is a heritable trait, as is socio-economic status (SES). SES is partly a measure of possessions. Higher income allows one to consume possessions, and it has been posited that it is possible to conspicuously consume, thus allowing sexual selection in regards to income and SES to occur.
http://www.google.com/search?q=veblen+conspicuous+consumptio...
Mercedes and Lexus seemed pretty comparable for the same class back when I was looking.Where did you find a $200,000 Lexus?
http://www.motortrend.com/cars/2009/mercedes_benz/s_class
Sum Up: the luxury-car benchmark.
http://www.google.com/search?q=mercedes+lexus+%22better+valu...
http://www.google.com/search?q=lexus+%22not+a+luxury%22+merc...
... faded in 2006 and 2007 as buyers looked at better-value alternatives, notably the Lexus
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/main.jhtml?xml=/motoring...
Why I can't lust after the Lexus Last Updated: 12:01am BST 22/11/1997
It is good value, looks OK, handles well. But unlike its sexy competitors, it's just not desirable, finds Peter Dron ...
What does Lexus offer against these icons, especially the BMW (frequently cited as Lexus's target), whose length it matches to the millimetre?
Value for money is a good starting point. ...
The BMW may not offer better value, and in most objective measurements it is not a significantly better car. But it is a more desirable car than the Lexus. The same may be said of the Mercedes, Jaguar and Audi.
And Lexus is similarly priced in any given class (for instance, entry level sedan, in which they're both around $32k) in which they compete. They just don't have anything (currently, one's coming soon) in that high end, though their LS hybrid does cost more than a lower-end S-Class.
11 year old articles might not be the best source of information.
Also, what's with
this?It's a spacer, to improve readability.
If you are meaning to imply that there can be such a thing as a heritable trait that is not biological, perhaps you should define what you mean by the term "biological trait". What do you mean when you say that income is not a biological trait?
FYI, here is a dictionary (M-W Unabridged) definition of heritability:
the proportion of observed variation in a particular trait (as intelligence) that can be attributed to inherited genetic factors in contrast to environmental ones
This search...
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22biological+trait+is+a%22
...returns this interesting hit:
Learning ability, as any biological trait, is a product of natural selection. Consequently, it can only evolve if the benefits outweigh the costs.
Would you class learning ability as a "biological trait"?
Would you class learning ability as a "heritable trait in an evolutionary context"?
This is also interesting:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22income+is+heritable%22
40% of income is heritable.
My understanding is that both the X300 and X301 represent better values than the Air.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/38936/145
the X300 weighs 0.1 pounds less, comes with a 64 GB SDD by default and offers more configuration options, such as an internal DVD burner, up to 4 GB of memory, a second battery, cellular broadband internet and a wireless USB card. The X300 and MacBook Air went through several price cuts, but teh Lenovo notebook is currently available for substantially less money. ...
Lenovo says that the new [X301] processor and memory deliver 20% more performance. Also new is the DisplayPort support. The 13.3” LED backlit screen remains unchanged, but it still offers more working resolution (1440 x 900) than the MacBook Air (1280 x 800).
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...
Well, that's what you said.
I suppose comments on HN are taken seriously and considered well thought-out comprehensing your complete thought. Ok, that's naive.
But it sounds insulting to say they need self-evaluation (which is what I think sparked the post).
I buy Macs because they help me get more shit done. End of story.