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I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

sethpurcell.com

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Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#231

Post by CM30 »

Feels like you could write the same article about theme parks nowadays too. Okay, there are still a fair few physical attractions there, but the likes of Universal Studios were infamous for having 'rollercoaster' like rides which were just simulators on a screen rather than relying on physical scenery, animatronics, etc.

Feels like there's a lot of attempts to integrate smartphones into the parks too, like through activities that involve using a mobile app instead of a physical prop or console.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#232

Post by watwut »

bluGill wrote: post #85
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> science museums being places for kids is a good thing. The are the ones who benefit the most I'm not sure how you can look at the current state of scientific literacy in America and conclude this. > art museums, the problem is that they are usually just exhibitions, and to be honest, that's boring, especially if you are a kid There are historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art that make it beautiful bey…

> There are historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art that make it beautiful beyond the aesthetic. Those are in the eye of the beholder though. In many cases they are things I still don't care about after learning about them. An ugly painting doesn't become any more interesting to me when I learn about the struggles the artist went through - a lot of people do find it more interesting - good for them, but…

> when I learn about the struggles the artist went through

The comment you responded to was about "historical, thematic and philosophical aspects to art". Which is something entirely different.

This really reads like someone knee jerk dismissing something they never bothered took at, but just assume it's stupid.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#233

Post by sethpurcell »

Certified wrote: post #220

Vindication! I’ve spent over a decade of my life putting physical interactives into museums. I have preached (sold) many museums on the stance that they should put unique experiences into museums that can’t happen on an iPad at home, to varying degrees of success. The museums that have listened are the ones that continue to be wildly successful to this day. They are hard to do right though. I used to compete in comba…

THANK YOU for fighting this fight. I hope the responses here might add some empirical weight to your arguments — some people apparently do care about this.

And I believe you on how hard the reliability/durability challenges must be in engineering these things — I've seen what the kids do to them.

BTW, I think the mechanisms themselves are no small part of the interest; kids don't just get to see whatever phenomenon is being demonstrated by the device, they get to poke at the thing that does it and try to figure out how it works, and that's a lot of fun for a curious kid; there are layers there.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#234

Post by watwut »

mattkrause wrote: post #170
dcminter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It drives me absolutely bananas that the "interpretation" (fancy museum word for "signs") at science museums is so parsimonious. Some fascinating device vital to the history of an important branch of science will have a brief paragraph about the person who invented it, nothing about what it's for, and then just a date and the device name. Often there's little or nothing further even in the museum shop. It's a crying…

Art museums are even worse. "Portrait of Duke von Duke (London, 1841). Oils." Who is this guy in the painting?! How did he merit a painting? What's unique about the style/composition/whatever? Conversely, I went to an exhibit of Napoleonic Art and they had a whole breakdown of the symbolism. For example, Napolean liked bees as a symbol of hard work and order, apparently, and they were snuck into most depictions of hi…

Most likely, there is no special backstory and the painting was simply commissioned. And most likely, there no super special composition in that portrait and the style is exactly the same as the style of surrounding paintings.

Most paintings dont have a cool backstories. They are just paintings. Art student can see technical details of how they were done, but those are not really interesting if you are not trying to learn to paint.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#235

Post by watwut »

bluGill wrote: post #89
watwut wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds correct about republican voters tho. And everyone suffers because of it.

Everyone suffers because you believe that stereotype instead of getting to know republicans and discovering it is false - many of them love science (who you vote for is a compromise - nobody will support everything you want them to)

I do know republicans, I am from more of conservative environment. I still semi regularly read conservative journals. It is currently what it is. Trying to idealise that word serves no one.

They dont like science. They used to like cosplay liking science, when it felt more manly or when they thought it sticks it to feminists. That interest ends long before any real science starts and have nothing to do with it.

They dont think much of actual scientists.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#236

Post by wl »

bluGill wrote: post #196
jmkd wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Curators often see "taking care" of the exhibits as more important than actually exhibiting them. Not to mention they're often art/history majors with very little clue about anything digital. Museum curators used to be called keepers and this only changed in the mid-late twentieth century. The philosophy of preservation runs deep and you won't struggle to find curators whose favourite day of the week is when the…

> The philosophy of preservation runs deep and you won't struggle to find curators whose favourite day of the week is when the museum is closed to the public. Which gets back to the question - why does/should the public support a museum. If we can't see it why are we keeping it? Even with our best preservation things will be destroyed over/with time, some things quicker than others. So if people don't get to see it w…

> So if people don't get to see it what is the point of preserving it.

That's assuming that the only point of museums is to exhibit the collection to the public. Certain museums—especially in archeology and the natural sciences—also exist to support researchers.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#237

Post by skirmish »

tedggh wrote: post #92
Der_Einzige wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's cus all skilled workers learned they can charge insane rates. Blue collar skilled labor starts at 100$ an hour in West Virginia or Mississippi now. Most of them, like Software, have learned that it's hard to figure out if the work they did was good or not until afterwards. As such, there are tons of charlatans, grifters, scammers, and related in many industries right now. Classic cases are Dentists (Literally ev…

It’s a supply and demand problem. There are just not enough people pursuing these jobs to replace the retiring generation. Some of these small family businesses are quite profitable, but most owners don’t have kids interested in continuing their legacy. Private equity noticed this and went on an acquisition spree. They buy your local HVAC and plumbing company, keep the family-owned branding “since 1976”, hire people…

Recent experience: called a HVAC contractor to fix a heating furnace, they spent 1 hour convincing us to scrap the current furnace and install a new one; once we told him "no" at least 10 times, he spent 30 minutes "diagnosing" the problem while on the phone with somebody with technical knowledge; then he quoted $250 to replace a part that I could buy on Ebay for $15. Finally, I bought the part and replaced it myself.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#239

Post by wizzwizz4 »

kridsdale1 wrote: post #56
forgotoldacc wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then you visit nearly any museum in Europe, and walls are absolutely covered in paintings with almost none of the wall itself visible and most of the paintings not even behind any sort of glass. It's kind of funny.

The STOP OIL NOW people are changing that with their paint.

(a) Just Stop Oil has disbanded.

(b) They only pulled that stunt on art that was already behind suitably-protective covers. (Whether the stunt is effective or not, they weren't putting artwork at risk: just temporarily disrupting the operation of galleries, and getting themselves arrested.)

(c) This is completely off-topic.

Re: I didn't bring my son to a museum to look at screens

#240

Post by redbell »

kleiba wrote: post #94

There is an incredible pressure on a lot of public facing endeavors to include digital , no matter whether it makes any sense at all or not. Take education, for instance - if it weren't such an important topic, it would be almost comical to observe how our schools are trying to jump through hoops to cram more IT into the classroom. (I wish the people responsible would take a look at Scandinavia though, where they are…

> I wish the people responsible would take a look at Scandinavia, though, where they are years ahead in that respect and have already begun taking digital devices out of the classrooms again.

Yes, Sweden was doing so as discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715841

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