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

The age of average

alexmurrell.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 493 posts

Re: The age of average

#331

Post by squidsoup »

Last5Digits wrote: post #216
acuozzo wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I barely consume media nowadays, because every book, movie, TV show, video game and song fails to give me an interesting or meaningful experience. I felt this way too until I realized that what I was really experiencing was that my desire to explore outside of my comfort zone had lessened with age. Have you jumped into silent films? Buster Keaton? Have you explored European Atmospheric Cinema? Jean-Luc Godard? Art…

Thank you for this advice. Upon some self-reflection, I think I realize now that I've fallen into this exact trap. The few movies I've recently watched have been the kind of formulaic drivel that I know I'm sick of, and yet I've never felt any desire to watch genres I'm not already familiar with. I seem to get some perverse kind of satisfaction from reinforcing my nihilistic view of the current state of things while…

> I seem to get some perverse kind of satisfaction from reinforcing my nihilistic view of the current state of things

Oh, you're going to love Béla Tarr, maybe start there.

Re: The age of average

#332

Post by julianlam »

The amusing point of all this average-ness is that every once in awhile a company does a wild rebrand that tries to set them apart from their competition.

e.g. Dropbox rebrand in 2017... remember that? Wild colours, weird fonts, blocky text, lots of white space..

Then, of course, everybody else shifts their rebrand the same direction and we end up with all the same new normal (e.g. Wise — https://wise.com/community/en/brand-new-look)

Re: The age of average

#333

Post by anonymouskimmer »

titzer wrote: post #221
crazygringo wrote: post #123

What the article describes is correct, but I don't think the words "average" or "homogeneity" or "conformity" are the right terms, as they seem to carry negative connotations here. Rather, the right word is "convergence". The point is, people like certain things aesthetically. It used to be that artists and designers were still trying to figure out what looks good, and trying all the things. But now we've tried so ma…

> Even if those things have converged aesthetically? But they haven't converged aesthetically any more than preferences have been absolutely overwritten , overridden , and overprinted by whatever is most easy to produce today. Your comment somewhat assumes that where we are is the ultimate endpoint of some long process, when in reality fads come and go. Tastes change. What is out there now is no more inevitable than…

> No, things have converged because lots of people with no taste[1] just ho-hummed along with the zeitgest.

You buy what you can afford. Whether that be a shotgun shack with second-hand traipings or a McMansion with IKEA furniture.

AirBNB's are optimizing for cheap, easy to clean and maintain, but still providing the minimum expected features. If you want variety, go to actual B&Bs.

The big mistake the artists in the first part did was to average all input, instead of cluster analyzing the input to discover more than one average type. On average, most people like nature, so nature is what you're going to get. A better test would be to have an art museum with diverse art, and then see which paintings attract the most interest, or even better, which patterns emerge when tracing many individuals throughout the museum.

I actually find the paintings fairly diverse, both in their individual content, and when compared to each other. But a person who has a mind to average everything will, of course, find a lot of similarity between them.

Re: The age of average

#334

Post by Karrot_Kream »

sheepybloke wrote: post #315
sidewndr46 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 over 1 is the result of regulations of various kinds converging resulting in economic pressures dictating that building format. Also unless land is just atrociously expensive, the marginal cost of adding floors doesn't go down. In fact it really goes up at some point. I've still never actually worked out how sewage works in supertall buildings.

My biggest gripe with 5 over 1's is the interior and the pricing. They're all cheap drywall with no insulation, quartz counter tops with an island and stainless steel appliances, and vinyl, wood grain flooring. They then claim that because they hit all of the "luxury" points, they are "luxury" apartments and can charge an extra $750 more than other apartments. In the end, all new apartments are like this, and beside…

They're marketed as "luxury" because it's so hard to build new housing in the US. The luxury you're paying for is new construction. You're not going to get competition on materials used in housing until it becomes easy to compete on housing.

Re: The age of average

#335

Post by TigeriusKirk »

titzer wrote: post #221
crazygringo wrote: post #123

What the article describes is correct, but I don't think the words "average" or "homogeneity" or "conformity" are the right terms, as they seem to carry negative connotations here. Rather, the right word is "convergence". The point is, people like certain things aesthetically. It used to be that artists and designers were still trying to figure out what looks good, and trying all the things. But now we've tried so ma…

> Even if those things have converged aesthetically? But they haven't converged aesthetically any more than preferences have been absolutely overwritten , overridden , and overprinted by whatever is most easy to produce today. Your comment somewhat assumes that where we are is the ultimate endpoint of some long process, when in reality fads come and go. Tastes change. What is out there now is no more inevitable than…

We've converged on the designs with the greatest acceptance. Not anyone's preference, just what they'll accept.

The phrase "lowest common denominator" applies here.

Re: The age of average

#336

Post by [deleted] »

uhtred wrote: post #56
slindsey wrote: post #5

Part of the problem within this article is the choice of pictures. The first section states, “In nearly every country all people really wanted was a landscape with a few figures around, animals in the foreground, mainly blue.” They then present 9 pictures that reinforce the concept that people all around the world expect the _same_ thing. But that's simply not true. They didn't take that description and give it to ar…

The article is still not wrong though, despite how you try to science it. Everywhere I look it's too much of the same shit: the instagram clone army of injected lips and fake eyelashes, the same craft ipa on every shelf, the same song released by someone with $$$ lil and x in their name, the same superhero movie with people being thrown through buildings, the same "our food is natural" burger chain.

[deleted]

Re: The age of average

#337

Post by Karrot_Kream »

SamBam wrote: post #39
slindsey wrote: post #5

Part of the problem within this article is the choice of pictures. The first section states, “In nearly every country all people really wanted was a landscape with a few figures around, animals in the foreground, mainly blue.” They then present 9 pictures that reinforce the concept that people all around the world expect the _same_ thing. But that's simply not true. They didn't take that description and give it to ar…

I figured people were going to take issue with the opening anecdote about art, but that was simply the author trying to frame the story in an interesting way. The rest of the article was more compelling. The ubiquity of the 5-over-1 architecture in the US is very striking. The NY Times had an article recently called "America the Bland" [1] which challenged people to tell if apartments were in Nashville, Seattle or De…

All housing waves produce cookie-cutter housing. Victorians all look like other Victorians, dingbats look like other dingbats, and brownstones look like other brownstones.

Re: The age of average

#338

Post by inglor_cz »

Interestingly, this may not be the first time when this has happened.

In the ancient Roman Empire, important buildings, fora, aqueducts, amphitheathers ... were remarkably similar across vast stretches of territory, even though there was no instant communication and no photography, only hand-drawn sketches on paper/papyrus.

Re: The age of average

#339

Post by Karrot_Kream »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #305
acuozzo wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I barely consume media nowadays, because every book, movie, TV show, video game and song fails to give me an interesting or meaningful experience. I felt this way too until I realized that what I was really experiencing was that my desire to explore outside of my comfort zone had lessened with age. Have you jumped into silent films? Buster Keaton? Have you explored European Atmospheric Cinema? Jean-Luc Godard? Art…

Part of this phenomenon is that the traditional "curators" of art are not really doing their jobs as stewards of the art. They are just extracting money. You used to be able to find cinemas that showed art house films in places other than the center of big cities (where they are struggling to stay open), but now it's all Marvel movies and whatever new samey rom-com just came out. That leads people to not even start d…

The age of curation and stewarding is gone. You can find all sorts of new, boundary-pushing art online, but there's no money or respect in curation anymore. Media is being created faster than any curator can keep up and the market is so wide that it's easier for individuals to just ask friends instead of seeking a trusted curator.

Re: The age of average

#340

Post by eimrine »

epups wrote: post #242
thomastjeffery wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary! There is a key difference going from "convergence" to "conformity": circular reasoning. People who need to sell the thing they invent, tell themselves that "convergence" is the best way there. Customers like familiar traits. So they design for intentional convergence, and that is the essence of conformity. 99.99999% of keyboards are the same physical layout. This layout is a standard that conforms to…

I would dare say that 99.99999% of keyboard users expect a similar layout. Sure, it converged out of conformity and familiarity, but so what? This is part of the added value to me, I can learn to type in a particular layout and I'm good to go in any other. This is a crucial part of functionality in fact.

> I would dare say that 99.99999% of keyboard users expect a similar layout.

Why don't they expect the best one? Seems like the 99.99999% of users are fooled by monkeys and bananas on ceiling experiment. I can not name that amount of people just idiots but if your upper-home row consist a word "typewriter" I consider your choice as definitely not wise.

Post reply on HN