It reminds me of I think Nietzsche, isn't it a quote of him? "In the end all that's left to us is taste"?
I can't seem to find it so quickly, so maybe my memory is failing me.
He definitely had a lot to say about taste.
Taste Is All That's Left
261–270 of 573 posts
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#262We've been talking about taste for a year now as it relates to AI, so I'm going to counterpoint it: if competitors can reproduce your features, UX, and visual decisions within days, your taste is not really an advantage. How many apps implemented pull down to refresh once one person did it? How many people even remember (or care) whose taste spawned that UX pattern? [1] AI is not inaugurating an age of taste. It is s…
Also Microsoft couldn’t match Apple taste with effectively all resources in the world. And they really tried. True taste is interesting because is more like a worldview, a modus operandi, a continuous process… those are harder to replicate.
Apple the company that was rescued from bankruptcy 30 years ago due to a miracle, yeah taste gets nowhere without a big bank account.
Lets see if they will mostly sell iPhones to the end of their time now.
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also Microsoft couldn’t match Apple taste with effectively all resources in the world. And they really tried. True taste is interesting because is more like a worldview, a modus operandi, a continuous process… those are harder to replicate.
Funny you mention Apple because they are proof that taste can be king. Yeah they also kidnap their users into their ecosystem and make smart business decisions, but what really differentiates them is taste. And Microsoft is sort of the counterpoint. There's more than one way to succeed I guess.
Apple's taste during the 1990's almost killed the company.
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#264A poem by polish poet which say exactly this.
TASTE
For Professor Izydora Dambska
It didn't require great character at all our refusal disagreement and resistance we had a shred of necessary courage but fundamentally it was a matter of taste Yes taste in which there are fibers of soul the cartilage of conscience Who knows if we had been better and more attractively tempted sent rose-skinned women thin as a wafer or fantastic creatures from the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch but what kind of hell was there at this time a wet pit the murderers' alley the barrack called a palace of justice a home-brewed Mephisto in a Lenin jacket sent Aurora's grandchildren out into the field boys with potato faces very ugly girls with red hands
Verily their rhetoric was made of cheap sacking (Marcus Tullius kept turning in his grave) chains of tautologies a couple of concepts like flails the dialectics of slaughterers no distinctions in reasoning syntax deprived of the beauty of the subjunctive
So aesthetics can be helpful in life one should not neglect the study of beauty
Before we declare our consent we must carefully examine the shape of the architecture the rhythm of the drums and pipes official colours the despicable ritual of funerals
Our eyes and ears refused obedience the princes of our senses proudly chose exile
It did not require great character at all we had a shred of necessary courage but fundamentally it was a matter of taste Yes taste that commands us to get out to make a wry face draw out a sneer even if for this the precious capital of the body the head must fall
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#265It's an interesting article. To me it reads like someone who is not confident in their writing, but is very interested in getting their idea across, iterated with an LLM to produce it. It set off all my LLM writing triggers and I noped out after about 3 sentences, because I'm designing/coding with AI all day and I'm 100% sick of its writing. I don't really care if it was written by an LLM or a person who writes in LL…
You hate LLM writing, so you took human written words and ran them through an LLM to read it?
Hate to break it to you, but you don't hate LLM writing.
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
An important feature of taste is also that it is highly variable between people, and because there is no system or proof of good taste, we cannot really say that one person's taste is objectively better than another's. This is what causes one person to build a large software system in a classical OOP language while another builds almost the same system in a typed functional language, each following their own internal…
> One thing I fear is going to happen when more and more people use LLM's for coding is that they will default to the "average taste" of the LLM, and we will stop getting new interesting ideas about how to build things. It is a possibility. But I also think we're underestimating the human need to create cool, unique things. Like yes most of the projects in this situation will have "average taste" but most of the proj…
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Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#267On the topic of taste, I think of this quote in Susan Sontag's "Notes On 'Camp'" often: “For taste governs every free — as opposed to rote — human response. Nothing is more decisive. There is taste in people, visual taste, taste in emotion — and there is taste in acts, taste in morality. Intelligence, as well, is really a kind of taste: taste in ideas. (One of the facts to be reckoned with is that taste tends to deve…
An important feature of taste is also that it is highly variable between people, and because there is no system or proof of good taste, we cannot really say that one person's taste is objectively better than another's. This is what causes one person to build a large software system in a classical OOP language while another builds almost the same system in a typed functional language, each following their own internal…
Have you ever used enterprise software?
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not about being the only person doing it, it's about choosing to include it. Many don't know what works and what doesn't. Being able to discern a set of features that are cohesive to a smooth experience is taste. Innovating and establishing oneself as the first person to deliver those experiences is a moat in itself.
Competitors can reproduce your discernment as well, it's the sum of your product and can be equally cloned. So how is this a moat?
Because reproduction is reactive. If an organisation only clones others' style then they'll always be behind the curve and will be widely recognised to be derivative and lacking their own 'taste'.
Look how long it takes Chinese brands to transition from being clones to establishing their own corporate image.
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I don't believe them.
It's only because you'd rather believe that you are being lied to than mistaken.
No, because the writing is objectively bad in ways that LLMs excel in producing.
Either they used an LLM or they have no taste and have used LLMs far too much elsewhere.
Re: Taste Is All That's Left
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny you mention Apple because they are proof that taste can be king. Yeah they also kidnap their users into their ecosystem and make smart business decisions, but what really differentiates them is taste. And Microsoft is sort of the counterpoint. There's more than one way to succeed I guess.
Apple's taste during the 1990's almost killed the company.
Because let's admit it, later it was a taste of one guy who got another "chance" or the company got a "chance" to be lead by him. Now as he is gone the company still carries that taste legacy with better or worse results.