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Google Images Restored

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Re: Google Images Restored

#141

Post by Fargren »

mminer237 wrote: post #110
lolc wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "intellectual property" lumps together quite disparate concepts. It's not helpful to use it. And "theft" is a poor analogy. I'd say society wouldn't change much if copyright were abolished. Probably for the better. Claiming authorship should still be protected in my opinion, see next point. Trademark law gives some nice protections to consumers, so I'd vote for that one to stay. Patent law? Ahhahaha where do…

Wouldn't programming, writing, music, and art as careers basically be gone overnight without copyright? Who is going to create a book, video game, or movie when they can't sell it? Programmers would be the best off of those I guess, but only because they would have the option to move all code server-side to stop piracy.

Copyright law has existed for only a few centuries, and people created art and science before it, as careers, for the entirety of human history. These jobs would be a lot different without IP law. They might be payed less and be done less, or maybe not. If they are payed less, it's true probably they wouldn't be as prolific. But they would still exist, it's disingenuous to claim IP law is a requirement for creative endeavors.

As a matter of fact, programming already works as if IP law didn't exist from the point of view of many programmers.I'm hired by a company to produce a product, in exchange for a salary. I don't know any IP that I might produce as a result of my work. I'm simply paid for my time. Could (as an example) novel writers be payed for the time spent writing a book rather than as a function of the sales of their books? I see not logistical reason why not. Maybe the market won't bear many writers under those conditions... But they would still exist, right?

Note: I think Trademark law is really good. And patents have issues but they are mostly good. I'm only talking about copyright here. I'm not entirely against the concept of IP, but I do think copyright law is not nearly as critical as it's made out to be. Maybe the optimal solution is weak copyright rather than no copyright, but I think it's important to understand that no copyright is not as crazy as it sounds.

Re: Google Images Restored

#142

Post by fuzzy2 »

Griffinsauce wrote: post #137
fuzzy2 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re in good company though. UI/UX in general is going to hell. Not just in $big_corp, but nearly everywhere. I think that’s mainly because we have UI/UX as a dedicated function now. It’s a job that seems to attract people that don’t know how software _works_. This results in “uncanny” UX that looks similar enough but just doesn’t work the way it should. Maybe I’m just getting old though!

I disagree. UI/UX designers often make utopic designs that would work great for the user, the engineers don't have the resources (time) or the will to execute it well and halfway through execution of the already dressed down version management pivots the team to their latest whim or fucks it up by adding a bunch of badly designed requirements meant to hack metrics. We live in a world of Frankenstein UIs and it's not…

But software rarely exists in a (design) vacuum. It runs on Windows, it runs in a browser, on an iPhone… or maybe the software already exists and it's just a new feature.

That's why "we live in a world of Frankenstein UIs". We don't need "utopic designs" but rather consistency. Both in visual language and interaction design.

There are a few notable exceptions like HMIs on industrial machines or a car's entertainment system.

Of course, incorrectly implemented design exists, too. No doubt about that.

Re: Google Images Restored

#143

Post by iFreilicht »

towndrunk wrote: post #85
userbinator wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minimalism, too much white space Those two tend to be related. It really angers me every time I see a huge amount of whitespace for no good reason, but then most of the functionality is hidden behind a dropdown menu whose equally stupid '...' indicator only shows up when you happen to hover over it. WTF. Back when UIs were still good, things would usually be hidden only if there wasn't enough space. You could see alm…

"indicator only shows up when you happen to hover over it. WTF." My wife and I had this conversation the other day. There are things in iOS you only get or see if you long press. How the hell are you to discover these things?

Long pressing is the equivalent of a right-click or shift-click, it's a well-established pattern. MacOS tried to avoid right-clicks for the longest time, but often there's just not enough space to have every feature discoverable by visuals alone.

Of course, hiding everything behind that is not good, but when I look at apps like FairMail that try to show you what you can do directly, it just gets very confusing and the space left for the actual content becomes miniscule.

Re: Google Images Restored

#144

Post by dendodge »

errantspark wrote: post #100
syndacks wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have modern civilization without IP law. Curious how you make a living; if it's like anything like the vast majority of the people on this site, or society in general for that matter, it's rooted in laws protecting theft of intellectual property.

I am calling for a refactor, not anarchy. I will go on record as saying that we would be better off as a society with drastically reduced intellectual property protections, especially along the temporal axis. You shouldn't be able to hold onto IP of any sort for more than a decade or so under any circumstances.

I'd even accept life. I don't necessarily agree, but I can see the argument that someone should have the exclusive right to profit from their work for the rest of their life. Maybe even add a few years as a grace period to give the estate time to adjust business practices in response to a sudden death.

But why we need to add another 70 years is a mystery to me. How does that encourage creativity and innovation?

Re: Google Images Restored

#145

Post by dendodge »

syndacks wrote: post #52
errantspark wrote: post #11

Fuck Getty Images. Fuck IP law. Fuck copyright. All that shit needs a massive refactor. I can't bear to think about how much harm has been done to software and human reality in general by lawyers and MBAs seeking to extract the maximum amount of value from things. I'm glad things like this exist, but so sad that they need to. EDIT: and as one commenter astutely pointed out, fuck Pintrest too, a perfect example of the…

We wouldn't have modern civilization without IP law. Curious how you make a living; if it's like anything like the vast majority of the people on this site, or society in general for that matter, it's rooted in laws protecting theft of intellectual property.

Avoiding the obvious argument that theft is a poor choice of word for this case, I'd like to question whether we actually treat intellectual and traditional property as similarly as IP proponents like to claim.

If you sell me an antique chair, I'm free to upcycle it, transform it into something new, and sell it on. I'm free to examine it and build an exact replica. I can give my chair to whomever I want and let any number of strangers sit on it. Such is the nature of property.

If you sell me a song, I must keep it in your proprietary system, leave the DRM intact, and definitely never even think about remixing it and selling my derived works.

IP is not property, it's a distinct beast of its own. It can't be "stolen" in the traditional sense, and it seems it can't really be bought or sold either.

Re: Google Images Restored

#147

Post by antihero »

neilpanchal wrote: post #51
gchokov wrote: post #5

Someone in Google’s UX and Design department, really needs go out and breathe some fresh air. Is it only me, who dislikes 95% of the design decision of Google products in the recent years?

There are so many things that bother me about contemporary UI in general, I ranted on here the other day: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24965293 I sincerely feel that the discipline of building user interfaces is long lost and perhaps never to come back. From car dashboards to loud typography, the whole field is regressing. Minimalism, too much white space, infantilization of users, design trends, loss of pred…

See whilst diskprices is very functional, it is aesthetically poor.

Good design has both functionality and form.

Design is not only about being as useful as possible, but also to present something that is beautiful - it is easier to build a relationship with a user when they are compelled to enjoy a product more due to its visual appeal.

I think a lot of developers seem oblivious to the power of aesthetics because they are so ardently in the functionality camp. The density of information on DiskPrices, whist great for a power user, would probably be daunting and overloading for the average user and whilst it has a retro vibe, is catering to a niche - people technical enough to be looking at disk prices.

Re: Google Images Restored

#148

Post by greggman3 »

chii wrote: post #95
towndrunk wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"indicator only shows up when you happen to hover over it. WTF." My wife and I had this conversation the other day. There are things in iOS you only get or see if you long press. How the hell are you to discover these things?

It's a subtle psychological manipulation of the mind of the users of computers - stick to the simple use case, and don't do complicated things, don't try to be an advanced user, don't think for yourself and just consume what we tell you to. I hate it.

This sounds like a great inspiration for a modern parody of "They Live" (1988)

Re: Google Images Restored

#149

Post by BlahGod420 »

_underfl0w_ wrote: post #40
101008 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am interested in your point of view. Care to expand?

I'm not the parent poster but I see where they're coming from - form used to purely _follow_ function in computer UI/UX (as in most engineering fields) but now it's been delegated to "creatives" who, by virtue of their skill set, put form first. Overall "betterness" is subjective, but speaking as someone who uses a computer as a tool I can honestly say I'd prefer it to function pragmatically than look pretty, if the…

Given two functionally equivalent pieces of software, customers will choose the prettier of the two. That's all I want to contribute to the conversation.

Re: Google Images Restored

#150

Post by tpxl »

GuB-42 wrote: post #83
rajacombinator wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the name for this abhorrent trend, and how did it originate and become ubiquitous?

I'd say it started with the mobile web. Lots of space and simplistic interfaces make a lot of sense when you have a small screen and fat fingers. It is terrible on a desktop but since people want a unified experience, to keep things familiar to the user and to simplify development, you get the least common denominatior. I'd say that the "flat" trend was started by Microsoft with Windows Mobile and Windows 8. Apple an…

> people want a unified experience

Never have I ever heard of a user wanting a unified experience. I have heard plenty of designers though.

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