Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

exple.tive.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 135 posts

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#71

Post by mfoy_ »

benihana wrote: post #47
bjt wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine: > More to the point, this is why the soi-disant-designer snob ... comes across as such a douchebag. It’s not “minimalist” if you buy a new one every two years; it’s conspicuous consumption with chamfered edges.

Ah, he found me out. I'm buying a new laptop every three years to impress strangers so they think I'm rich and are impressed with my status. Definitely not because my entire existence has happened in a time where the amount of transistors on a circuit doubling every 18 months was essentially considered a fact of nature.

Just because the next model has twice the whatever doesn't mean you need to get it. The only reason people upgrade on such a nice, predictable cycle is because of planned obsolescence.

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#72

Post by emodendroket »

poopbutt wrote: post #63
JohnBooty wrote: post #43

Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…

Yeah, I hear where you're coming from, but all of those parts are still serviceable. If your starter goes on your Ford car, you might have to buy a Ford starter (or a third party starter for a Ford car), but it can still be fixed with a commonly accessible set of relatively inexpensive tools. If the RAM in my Macbook gets cooked, either I can buy an entire new motherboard, or a new laptop. It's throwing the baby out…

Well, increasingly not even independent mechanics can fix various parts of cars, let alone enthusiasts with only cheap tools.

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#73

Post by dsr_ »

VLM wrote: post #51
ginko wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Almost no other category of consumer good works in the modular way that we nerds wish that everything would. One exception I can think of are bicycles.

Hi Fi stereo sound is strongly out of cultural favor, tinny little speakers and 64K mp3 quality means you're conspicuously consuming smartphones, which is more important. However, component hi-fi stereo or 80s era home entertainment systems were a very modular thing in the past. From my wife's point of view its one octopus like appliance, but to mine it was a collection of amp, speakers, and legacy media players.

If you buy a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones -- they've been around since 1991, still being made, under $100 on sale -- you get an exploded diagram with part numbers for everything.

At the end of the cable is a 3.5mm TRS phone jack connector, which has a passive adapter to 6.35mm (1/4"). The 1/4 inch phone jack was invented in 1878, for use in the repetitive insertion environment of a manual telephone switchboard.

Basically every set of headphones you've used in your life has used a phone plug/jack connector. It's a pretty good bet that a hundred years from now there will still be people using phone plug/jack systems to connect up systems where some part needs 2-4 wires and will be repeatedly removed and re-inserted.

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#74

Post by jbob2000 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #43

Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…

This is a very American point of view. German and Japanese cars are very modular; you can take certain parts from a 3 series and use them in a 7 series, and vice-versa. The transmission in the Toyota 86 is straight out of a Lexus IS.

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#76

Post by rsync »

I really, really miss the days when there was more than one manufacturer of computers.

I think it was in 2002/2003 when I was last in the market for a non-apple device and there was a lot of interesting competition ... thinkpads, sony vaio, HP ... Dell had some great laptops ... there was actually a reason to scroll through gizmodo/engadget and look at new products coming out.

Now there's only one.[1]

I really do think that the macbook air is the final evolution of the laptop computer. Yes, I do wish I could pull the battery and yes I do miss PCMCIA and yes I cannot use a laptop with a single port[2] but the 13" MBA that I bought in late 2008 lasted 7 years of hard use and three battery swap-outs (done by apple, of course).[3]

I don't really understand why other manufacturers can't make a MBA ... I'd like to see some minor competition along the very, very final bits of design latitude you can have in this thoroughly distilled form factor ... but for whatever reason Dell/HP/Sony/Lenovo refuse to just make their laptops out of metal for god's sake.

I wonder if this is where we are going with high end cars ? I notice the exact same inability to function on the part of all the incumbent car manufacturers. It's how many years since the Prius came out and how many years since the Tesla roadster and Porsche just announced an all electric car and of course it's a concept car?[4] BMW has a brand new 7 series with the predictably lame hybrid option mated to some little lawnmower engine. Just concept cars and half-assed hybrids over and over again. Meanwhile, Tesla has a dual-motor, AWD supercar for sale.

There used to be more than one maker of high end four door luxury cars ...

[1] Well, actually there's two - apple for laptops/desktops and supermicro (god bless them) for anything that goes in a rack.

[2] New macbook 12" with the single combined USB/power.

[3] Actually it still works now, but I get a new 11" MBA.

[4] http://money.cnn.com/2015/09/15/autos/porsche-debuts-first-e...

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#78

Post by ghaff »

jbob2000 wrote: post #74
JohnBooty wrote: post #43

Understand that PCs were end-user fixable and upgradeable by accident. The intention was never for you, the person who bought your computer, to be able to pop a new CPU into your Compaq five years later. Standardized, modular parts were always all about the OEMs, who were all trying to build an industry by cloning the IBM PC. They could have a variety of manufacturers making various components and as long as everybod…

This is a very American point of view. German and Japanese cars are very modular; you can take certain parts from a 3 series and use them in a 7 series, and vice-versa. The transmission in the Toyota 86 is straight out of a Lexus IS.

It's not really a nationality-based thing (although Toyota and VW do have the largest volumes on a single platform). There's been a significant shift toward modular automobile platforms in general. Some numbers I saw recently indicated that almost half of passenger cars were based on the top 20 platforms.

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#79

Post by th0waway »

emodendroket wrote: post #72
poopbutt wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I hear where you're coming from, but all of those parts are still serviceable. If your starter goes on your Ford car, you might have to buy a Ford starter (or a third party starter for a Ford car), but it can still be fixed with a commonly accessible set of relatively inexpensive tools. If the RAM in my Macbook gets cooked, either I can buy an entire new motherboard, or a new laptop. It's throwing the baby out…

Well, increasingly not even independent mechanics can fix various parts of cars, let alone enthusiasts with only cheap tools.

and a lot of that is by design, which is sad, and also is why I am buying older cars.

Re: The Jason Bourne Aesthetic

#80

Post by rsync »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #34

This might be an interesting reply: https://www.fairphone.com/phone/ - it's not exactly a clunky brick, and it's completely modular and user-serviceable (at the level of modules, anyhow). Apple didn't pare down the openness, they designed it out. They've been actively hostile to user servicing since the toaster mac (that you couldn't even open without a proprietary tool).

Thanks very much for sharing this link - I had not heard of the fairphone before.

Predictably huge at 5+ inches screen diagonal, but I guess that's to be expected these days.

Post reply on HN