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The Flat Sink

sachagreif.com

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Re: The Flat Sink

#121

Post by sgdesign »

jorde wrote: post #117
crazygringo wrote: post #32

I stayed with a friend in a then-new building designed by Philippe Starck, in New York. The bathroom sink faucet handles were very cool -- just smooth steel cylinders sticking out, that you rotated. Until I tried turning them with my now-soapy hands... and discovered that they were impossible to turn, because there was nothing to grab onto! His stylish cylinders turned out to be completely useless. Turns out knobby h…

I noticed the same kind of faucets at my friend's place in SF's Mint Plaza (probably one of the most expensive condos in the city). It blew my mind how hard to use they were, even without soap, with just wet hands. Overall I think that modern design has had a negative impact on kitchen and bathroom utilities: much of the functionality is lost with minimalistic design. There's also quite a lot of difference between co…

We have an infrared-activated faucet in our Japanese kitchen sink and it's really great!

Re: The Flat Sink

#122

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

randallsquared wrote: post #27
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen those in restaurant lavatories. The disadvantage is that when filling a sink e.g. for shaving, the water pools at a line rather than a point. this is obviously not a problem in a restaurant. See the third illustration "With a flat sink, you need more water to get the same depth" - an angled flat surface would be somewhere between the two in efficiency of water use.

I think if I were going to shave this way, I'd use a bowl instead of putting a lot of water into a presumably-not-perfectly-clean sink. You could wash a bowl and put it away after, whereas you'd have to wash the sink immediately before each shave. If the designer of the sink expected using a shaving bowl, the flat bottom would make a lot of sense.

I've been thinking about why you see these in restaurants, upmarket nightclubs, corporate boardrooms, etc. IMHO it is that:

1) they look impressive

2) They look like you spent money

3) The only task that they're actually used for is washing hands.

This is a different set of purposes from home use. Making your home bathroom look like a nightclub bathroom at the expense of usefulness is a particular kind of folly.

Re: The Flat Sink

#123

Post by b0rsuk »

The disadvantages of flat sinks don't end there. They're harder to clean, because dirt tends to stick in the corners.

Re: The Flat Sink

#124

Post by sgdesign »

neya wrote: post #112

The author goes to conclude that Windows RT is an example of 'Flat Design' and doesn't even justify why. FYI: In my opinion, the author's $5.99 EBook on design is the best example of 'Flat Design' (I bought one). He claims to teach you to design a web app from scratch, but whereas the book is more of a walkthrough for a basic app than a 'how-to' (which is what he claims). Once you purchase his book, you realize it wa…

Wow. It's so interesting to see how our own biases can completely transform the meaning of what we're reading.

Where did I bash Windows RT? How am I an Apple fanboy when this article barely mentions Apple, and only to say designers are getting tired of Apple's aesthetic?

I'm a little bit sad for you. It seems you see all discourse through an "Apple vs XYZ" filter, and that must be extremely restrictive. Just think of all the information you're missing out on by reducing every single piece of information you come across to a binary dichotomy…

Re: The Flat Sink

#125

Post by sgdesign »

ebf wrote: post #87
thaumaturgy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Citation needed" is intellectually lazy. It is middlebrow dismissal's slightly more popular cousin. "Citation needed" is never a counter-argument, but often stands in place of one. It is the rhetorical equivalent of burying your opponent in discovery: it is a challenge that consists solely of expecting someone else to do more work than they would like to. If you have a question about something, ask. If you disagree…

If someone pushes a statement as a fact and not as their opinion then they better be prepared to back it up it with evidence. End of story.

It's my blog! Do you really want me to prefix every single sentence with "it is my opinion that…"?

Feel free to do that in your mind if you want to, this way it won't bother other people.

Re: The Flat Sink

#126

Post by CaptainZapp »

sgdesign wrote: post #125
ebf wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone pushes a statement as a fact and not as their opinion then they better be prepared to back it up it with evidence. End of story.

It's my blog! Do you really want me to prefix every single sentence with "it is my opinion that…"? Feel free to do that in your mind if you want to, this way it won't bother other people.

There's a hell of a lot of difference between presenting an opinion and presenting something as fact, without backing it up.

"citation needed" is an apt response if something is presented as fact, without backing it up it's not relevant for arguments, which are clearly presented as opinion.

It doesn't really matter how outlandish an opinion is, but if you make assertions and present them as fact, then you better be prepared to back them up with evidence.

Re: The Flat Sink

#127

Post by kalms »

martinced wrote: post #81
_pra wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your goal is to actually clean your hands, then it's not a waste. Proper hand-washing requires not touching anything dirty after you've cleaned up. And how did you turn the faucet on? With your dirty hands. So, wash, dry with a paper towel, turn faucet off with paper towel.

By your logic then as soon as you get out of the bathroom and touch anything, then your hands aren't clean anymore. So what was the point in cleaning them? Being too much of a maniac with such thing is no good. Especially not for your kids: an environment that is too clean will prevent them from developing proper defenses and as soon as they'll be outside, they'll get sick like sissies all the time :-/

The aforementioned approach is recommended to avoid spreading flu virus, and other winter time bugs.

If you want to avoid your kids getting sick, I can recommend getting them a flu vaccine. Probably safer than relying on a faucet containing the exact amount of virus you need to develop antibodies.

Re: The Flat Sink

#128

Post by henrikschroder »

jorde wrote: post #117
crazygringo wrote: post #32

I stayed with a friend in a then-new building designed by Philippe Starck, in New York. The bathroom sink faucet handles were very cool -- just smooth steel cylinders sticking out, that you rotated. Until I tried turning them with my now-soapy hands... and discovered that they were impossible to turn, because there was nothing to grab onto! His stylish cylinders turned out to be completely useless. Turns out knobby h…

I noticed the same kind of faucets at my friend's place in SF's Mint Plaza (probably one of the most expensive condos in the city). It blew my mind how hard to use they were, even without soap, with just wet hands. Overall I think that modern design has had a negative impact on kitchen and bathroom utilities: much of the functionality is lost with minimalistic design. There's also quite a lot of difference between co…

I feel your pain on bathroom faucets, I have a fantastic one-grip faucet that I can operate even with my elbow if I so wish. When things like that exist, why oh WHY would anyone buy two-grip faucets, or worse, BAD two-grip faucets?

Another point of horror is trends in design that cause some feature to just not exist anymore. Ten years ago I bought a combined microwave/kitchen fan, that had a great digital wheel for setting the time. It had the right size, and weight and feel, and it was really easy to set the timer because you developed muscle-memory really fast.

But a few years ago I moved, and had to buy a new microwave, and since a few years had passed, digital wheel were now "out" and almost impossible to find ovens that had them. Because suddenly the shitty +/- buttons where "in" again, and I was just out of luck.

Re: The Flat Sink

#129

Post by TeMPOraL »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #118
ebf wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence to support that you don't need evidence to backup facts or are you just being facetious? If you said the world was flat, and someone asked for evidence, would you also ask that where is your evidence that you need evidence?

> If you said the world was flat... Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving me such a beautiful piece of clay to work with. If I said, "the world is flat!", and it was around 400 BC, you, being an educated fellow, might say, "but what do you make of Pythagoras then?" If I said, "the world is flat!", and it was circa 100 BC, you, being a clever and worldly fellow, might say, "but what do you make of Eratosthenes th…

No, no, no.

If you are claiming something, than the burden is on you to provide us with evidence. Not on us.

And, in case of your example, "citation needed" is the most valid answer in XXI century, when your claim goes against all common scientific knowledge. Saying anything more is not intellectual laziness, it's a waste of energy. Burden of proof, again, lies on you.

Re: The Flat Sink

#130

Post by TeMPOraL »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #120
dredmorbius wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Citation needed" is anything but intellectual laziness. It is a calling out of intellectual laziness, in the form of an unsubstantiated assertion, and need not be a dismissal. If someone's going to make extraordinary claims, I'm going to request extraordinary evidence (or any evidence at all). It's even possible that I'm interested in the proposition and would like to pursue it further, but with the benefit of a bit…

Everything I said in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4972943 , plus: If you're actually interested in a claim and you need help finding further information about it, then say so. And if you think it's obvious bullshit, then say so by pointing out why . "Citation needed" is a meme. First it was just a good practice on Wikipedia, then Randall Munroe made a comic with it ( http://xkcd.com/285/ ), and then because lo…

> And if you think it's obvious bullshit, then say so by pointing out why.

How about: I (honestly) don't believe "putting stuff on one plane makes them difficult to read", nor had I ever any trouble with understanding flat interfaces. So how can we reconcile our opinions? You assert a general statement, I have a counterexample (i.e. myself) that seems to go against it.

You can't assert general statements without supporting evidence and expect people to believe you just like that. You can either mark it as opinion ("I believe ..."), or expect to hear requests for citations.

Yes, "citation needed" is a meme. Yes, it came from xkcd, which is so popular among geeks[0] not only because it's funny, but mostly because it's smart and accurate. It's not just another web comic out there.

> just like every other stupid meme, it is old and boring and misused and needs to be put out of its misery.

I'm sorry you say that. You see, you are in the Internet right now. It's an another world inside the real world. What you call "stupid", "old and boring and misused" memes are - for better or worse - the cultural and historical heritage of this place. They are equivalent to proverbs or adages of real world. You cannot get rid of them, they are product of culture.

[0] - and especially HN crowd; just search for "Relevant xkcd" or "Obligatory xkcd".

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