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Why is everything so ugly?

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Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#211

Post by GolfPopper »

JadeNB wrote: post #130
cs702 wrote: post #127

Well, I for one don't think everything is ugly. Apple devices and stores look clean and elegant to me. Tesla vehicles feel and look simple and beautiful to me. If given a choice, I'd rather live in new buildings with bright, light-filled interiors than in old buildings with darker, mustier interiors. I could provide more examples of things I don't think are ugly. The main point is this: Beauty is in the eye of the be…

> Tesla vehicles look beautiful to me. As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but, seriously, the Cybertruck as a thing of beauty? (This is from someone who actually liked the boxy car designs of old.)

The Cybertruck looks like something from the Rigger Black Book for Shadowrun. (Whether that's good or bad is, as JadeNB says, left as an exercise for the viewer. But for me it definitely fits its name.)

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#212

Post by inglor_cz »

saghm wrote: post #206
crazygringo wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now this dude is nostalgic for them? No, they really were better for sleep. With the orange-ish sodium lights, I could go to sleep with their light still coming through the bedroom window. The amber glow was reminiscent of the glow of fire. The harsh blue light now tells my brain it's daytime. I had to buy blackout curtains to be able to fall asleep. It's the same principle as using the amber-hued Night Mode on you…

> With the orange-ish sodium lights, I could go to sleep with their light still coming through the bedroom window. The amber glow was reminiscent of the glow of fire. > The harsh blue light now tells my brain it's daytime. I had to buy blackout curtains to be able to fall asleep. When I moved in with my fiancee (at the time my girlfriend), I noticed after a couple months that I had a bit of trouble sleeping due to he…

Sleep mask + very good earplugs + some melatonin made me a very sound sleeper in my forties, while I suffered from chronic insomnia since my teens.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#213

Post by inglor_cz »

renewiltord wrote: post #143
snakeyjake wrote: post #124

> After New York replaced the sodium-vapor lights in the city’s 250,000 streetlamps with shiny new LEDs in 2017, the experience of walking through the city at night transformed, almost . . . overnight. Forgiving, romantic, shadowy orange gave way to cold, all-seeing bluish white. Before the late 1970s, NYC was illuminated at night by pinkish-white incandescent bulbs. When the yellow monstrosities were rolled out peop…

Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.

Are you sure?

Many more people admire Taj Mahal or Ancient Greek/Roman buildings than, say, brutalist architecture. Heck, even Art Deco, while distinctly modern, seems to be likeable.

I am fairly conservative myself, but I like some new Czech buildings, such as the Masaryčka project by Zaha Hadid. It has a soaring soul that is hard to describe, but nevertheless you can feel the positive vibe of the structure when you walk underneath it.

https://www.masarycka.com/cs/o-projektu/

On the other hand, Le Corbusier architecture (mostly older than me, so I should have been used to it) looks like deliberate insult to anything human: look at this concrete prison I made for you and weep and gnash your teeth because there is no escape from its rotting ugliness, you worm.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#214

Post by BizarreByte »

Throw84949 wrote: post #209
BizarreByte wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Magnitogorsk has nice weather in summer. Some green parks, decent public transport. But not that much fun, westerners usually prefer university cities. It has very nice surrounding nature. Sounds like a lot of western cities honestly. Most are okay places to live, but not exactly happening, overly fun places. I'll be honest I expected a lot worse when looking on street view, but I looked around a bunch of places an…

> "I could live here". Winters are brutal and quite depressing. All sorts of blood leaching insects in summer. Some people have alergies to clouds of pollen... And Russian administration was challenging even before the war. I am nomad, it is part of my rotation. Very nice place for couple of weeks at right time of year. (not Magnitogorsk specifically)

> Winters are brutal and quite depressing. All sorts of blood leaching insects in summer. Some people have alergies to clouds of pollen..

Honestly sounds like most Canadian cities I'm familiar with, particularly Winnipeg.

> And Russian administration was challenging even before the war.

Yah that I don't know if I could put up with that.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#215

Post by bigstrat2003 »

JadeNB wrote: post #130
cs702 wrote: post #127

Well, I for one don't think everything is ugly. Apple devices and stores look clean and elegant to me. Tesla vehicles feel and look simple and beautiful to me. If given a choice, I'd rather live in new buildings with bright, light-filled interiors than in old buildings with darker, mustier interiors. I could provide more examples of things I don't think are ugly. The main point is this: Beauty is in the eye of the be…

> Tesla vehicles look beautiful to me. As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but, seriously, the Cybertruck as a thing of beauty? (This is from someone who actually liked the boxy car designs of old.)

What gets me about the Cybertruck is that it feels like it's almost a cool design. I feel like if I squint my eyes, I can almost see a modern version of the DeLorean design (which was cool as hell). But it went wrong somewhere, and Tesla took a left turn into the ugly zone.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#216

Post by mewpmewp2 »

at_compile_time wrote: post #178
JadeNB wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla vehicles look beautiful to me. As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder—but, seriously, the Cybertruck as a thing of beauty? (This is from someone who actually liked the boxy car designs of old.)

If you don't like the Cybertruck, you can close your browser tab and not be offended further. Tesla 3s and Ys exist in the real world, and they're more pleasant to look at than most vehicles.

Model S looks good to me, but others look kind of funny or not in correct proportions and the front lights of those are also weird.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#217

Post by Throw84949 »

BizarreByte wrote: post #214
Throw84949 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I could live here". Winters are brutal and quite depressing. All sorts of blood leaching insects in summer. Some people have alergies to clouds of pollen... And Russian administration was challenging even before the war. I am nomad, it is part of my rotation. Very nice place for couple of weeks at right time of year. (not Magnitogorsk specifically)

> Winters are brutal and quite depressing. All sorts of blood leaching insects in summer. Some people have alergies to clouds of pollen.. Honestly sounds like most Canadian cities I'm familiar with, particularly Winnipeg. > And Russian administration was challenging even before the war. Yah that I don't know if I could put up with that.

If you are tired of Canada, try Wroclav in April for a month, slavic mentality may not be for everyone. There is yt channel "offshore citizen", international tax accountant from Canada, pretty good info.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#218

Post by lttlrck »

achileas wrote: post #149
renewiltord wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.

This is the only real takeaway of the article. “I don’t like this because it’s new to me, therefore it’s universally bad.” I live in Boston and there was a similar freakout about the gas lamps in Beacon Hill being replaced by LEDs. Not a single person I talked to about it knew that the gas lamps were only added to the neighborhood in the late 70s to make it look more quaint and historic.

On the other hand, that they didn't know they were added "just" 40 years ago suggests that the decision to install them was a very good one? Not that I support gas street lighting, but there is a distinct lack of genuinely quaint and historic districts in US cities.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#219

Post by renewiltord »

inglor_cz wrote: post #213
renewiltord wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of these aesthetic criticism people are just conservative people. They don't like change. The world was best when they arrived somewhere. That's pretty much it. SF is full of a similar kind.

Are you sure? Many more people admire Taj Mahal or Ancient Greek/Roman buildings than, say, brutalist architecture. Heck, even Art Deco, while distinctly modern, seems to be likeable. I am fairly conservative myself, but I like some new Czech buildings, such as the Masaryčka project by Zaha Hadid. It has a soaring soul that is hard to describe, but nevertheless you can feel the positive vibe of the structure when you…

I can't speak to the culture in Eastern Europe. I meant in the US where I'm quite sure considering old beloved artifacts of today are all the nightmarish monsters of yesteryear that people protested.

Fortunately, the American version of this view will be smashed in the next two decades and we will enter an era of creation once again.

Re: Why is everything so ugly?

#220

Post by waynesonfire »

latency-guy2 wrote: post #82
jszymborski wrote: post #38

I just wanted to echo the gray frustration here. I went to buy vinyl flooring (I can't afford hardwood) and the sheer amount of inexplicably "grey wood" planks was staggering. Why! Like, it's as if some alien only saw wood in an episode of I Love Lucy and wanted to replicate it.

I firmly dislike cherrywood, anything that is more red than brown is absolute shit to me. My parents loved it, thought it was the pinnacle of wealth. Now you might be questioning why I dislike cherrywood. The answer doesn't actually matter though, I dislike it. Most importantly, I am not the only one. I like vinyl, because I spent a few weeks of my life (probably at most a few hours total actual wall clock hours on i…

Had you started your post with i like vinyl, i would have stopped reading sooner.
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