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The Worst

thoughtcrime.org

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Re: The Worst

#121

Post by ricardobeat »

apike wrote: post #57
MattRogish wrote: post #40

"Any reasonable person wouldn’t feel liberated by a $50 fork, but constrained by it. One wouldn’t be able to help but worry: is it being cared for correctly, is my friend going to mess it up when absentmindedly tapping the table with it, is it going to get dropped or stepped on if a dance party erupts in the kitchen? After all, it is the perfect fork, what if something happened to it to make it… not perfect?" This is…

Indeed. I don't intentionally damage new things, but people are often surprised that I don't agonize over keeping my phone, car, or laptop looking brand new. The idea of a scratched Honda sort bothers people, but idea of a scratched Audi makes people crazy. Why waste your energy worrying about this? A Audi with some scratches is a very nice car, and an iPhone with some scratches is a very nice phone.

bumperless/caseless iPhone. Living on the edge!

Re: The Worst

#122

Post by maegget »

Domenic_S wrote: post #103
apike wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I don't intentionally damage new things, but people are often surprised that I don't agonize over keeping my phone, car, or laptop looking brand new. The idea of a scratched Honda sort bothers people, but idea of a scratched Audi makes people crazy. Why waste your energy worrying about this? A Audi with some scratches is a very nice car, and an iPhone with some scratches is a very nice phone.

> [the] idea of a scratched Audi makes people crazy. Why waste your energy worrying about this? Because other people worry about it when buying a used Audi. And the obscene cost to repair auto paint. A carelessly placed shopping cart or thoughtless lean against the car in riveted jeans can cause thousands of dollars of damage.

But then you may end up worrying about scratching anything you own. Your phone, your leather lounge, your car, etc.

I guess there is a line-in-the-sand, probably around some dollar-value. I don't care if I scratch the aluminium case of my iPad, but I do mind if I scratch the paint of my relatively new car.

My parents-in-law are protective of their lounge. I don't mind. But I let my kids go crazy jumping on my own lounge, because I don't mind that either.

Re: The Worst

#123

Post by tptacek »

Domenic_S wrote: post #112
tptacek wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea who you are either, but my presumption isn't that you've done so little in your career that I'd wonder why I was reading your thoughts.

Take it easy. Dustin holds a lot of credibility around here, and I'm curious as to the source of it. I have no presumption one way or the other, and it isn't out of line to ask what a highly-regarded designer has designed.

I answered your question upthread.

Re: The Worst

#124

Post by ricardobeat »

> both ideas and material possessions should be tools that serve us, rather than things we live in service to

I think dustin and moxie are talking about different things. For me, the philosophy behind "The best" is exactly that: you don't need to worry that your friends will step on your cutlery, because it's strong enough to not get damaged. You don't worry about replacing it because of rust or wear, etc etc (enough with cutlery).

By going for "the worst" you end up with a lot of crap that you don't really use or care about. It's what almost everybody does. The opposite means buying only what you need; the best == expensive, so you'll buy less.

The author also dismisses the environmental effect of this mentality; millions of people buying buckets of 50-cent crap every couple months equals a fuckload of plastic waste. This is preaching consumerism, and I'm surprised by how many people fall for it.

Re: The Worst

#125

Post by ricardobeat »

1337p337 wrote: post #13
cjensen wrote: post #2

The author of this linked article has made an error: he assumes dcurtis' flatware is inordinately expensive. It is not; traditional flatware really is absurdly expensive. Much of the author's article is based on this assumption. I'd suggest he familiarize himself with "wedding gift"-style flatware. Then do a rewrite because I think there is a good argument still to be had.

I don't know where you shop, but the "traditional flatware" of my people is whatever was cheap enough at the department store. Our rich native customs dictate that we spend $15 on a set, and then use it until there are not enough non-bent spoons, and then to spend another $15.

Thus resulting in an endless stream of quick-decaying stuff from china to your home.

And a hundred round-trips to the department store, if you apply that to everything in your life.

Re: The Worst

#126

Post by robryan »

crazygringo wrote: post #50

I think the authors of "The Best" and "The Worst" are both right. In fact, pretty much everything I own is either "the best" or "the worst" -- no middle ground. I identify the very few things that really make a difference to me (my laptop, my stereo, my kitchen pots & pans & knives, my jeans) and buy the absolute best I can afford. And I identify the things I don't really care about (the rug, the chairs, most kitchen…

For the kitchen utensils example, I would also tend towards some kind of middle ground. I don't care at all about having the best but the worst is so cheap that if you aren't careful you will end up with more utensils than anyone really needs.

When I first moved out about 5 years ago I bought a kitchen set for under $100, bar plates, bowls and cups it had pretty much everything you would need in a kitchen. I am still using many parts of it today and slowly throwing out parts I didn't really use. I wouldn't buy one again because my kitchen would get to cluttered with too much stuff that I either won't use or use very little.

Re: The Worst

#127

Post by mistermann »

rthomas6 wrote: post #27

Could it be possible that there is a spectrum of choices which represent a trade-off between cost and quality? What if both authors took an already understood and practiced idea in our culture and took it to an absurd extreme? Every person will desire different quality for different items. Even Dustin Curtis doesn't get "the best" of all of his items. He says that he does, but if you keep reading, what he really mean…

> I love listening to music at work, so I did a lot of research and got a nice pair of $150 headphones with a $30 headphone amp.

I was looking into this very same thing yesterday, I'd be very interested in knowing what you decided on for the headphones and amp, or even particularly useful websites for research. (And does an amp make a big difference in your opinion?)

I was looking at a bit of a lower price point, around ~$80 or so in case you happened to accidentally soak up some information about that price point while you were at it, but I'm not really financially constrained at all so if you truly do get noticeably better performance a bit higher up I wouldn't mind spending the money. (Aesthetics are also rather important to me, for no particularly good reason since I'd never leave the house with them.)

Re: The Worst

#129

Post by Domenic_S »

tptacek wrote: post #123
Domenic_S wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it easy. Dustin holds a lot of credibility around here, and I'm curious as to the source of it. I have no presumption one way or the other, and it isn't out of line to ask what a highly-regarded designer has designed.

I answered your question upthread.

Are you referring to "A blog network and designing websites"?

Dustin had his rep before Svbtle. In the quest for determining the source of his design rep, I'm not sure Svbtle counts.

As far as 'designing websites' goes, all I know of is his old blog (the AA redesign mockup). I can't find a portfolio or tweet or dribbble or github or... anything really showcasing even one thing he's designed for someone other than himself. Can you?

Re: The Worst

#130

Post by Schwolop »

zacharyvoase wrote: post #45

It's really quite something when an author manages to put down in words a thought or a feeling you were hitherto incapable of expressing. Bravo. The dichotomy of best/worst — or, as I often think of it, acceptable versus available — is a tricky one, and it's not one which I feel I've yet solved. But I can certainly see how areas of my life tend towards the latter. Take my dotfiles, for example. I spent ages writing a…

Your point about key bindings is very prescient.

At my work, our book club is (re)reading The Pragmatic Programmer. There's a section which advocates picking one text editor, mastering its arcane secrets, customizing it until it's perfect, and never using anything else. All my colleagues happily agreed with this, and I couldn't quite express why I didn't.

Then I did a bit of pair programming with a few different people. In every case there was a significant learning curve just to follow what the driver was doing in their comfortable editing environment, and in the most customized cases, it was nigh impossible for me to drive at all.

So we relocated to my desk instead. I have a standard qwerty keyboard with vim, emacs, and textmate - all completely un-customized and ready to go. I couldn't care less which editor we use as I've learnt the bare minimum to be proficient in all of them. And importantly, so have my colleagues. Sure they grumble at not having their own autocompleting magic, but we can get our work done at a good enough rate, and either of us can drive.

(My previous work took this one (enterprise management style) step further and forced everyone to use the exact same model laptop, operating system, and editor. As a youngster I hated this required conformity. As a cynical old bastard I can see the logic...)

I definitely sit in the middle of the two camps. Not 'The Best', not 'The Worst'; just 'The Satisficing'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

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