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“There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

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Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#71

Post by johnnyanmac »

w10-1 wrote: post #68

Most HN posts are how to program, mainly focusing on new tools and ideas. But now the tooling is so good and the competition so fierce that the real question now is not how but what to program. For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them. This post imagines how Nadar saw his subjects, and how his subjects saw things. Not only is it a different time, but in most ca…

>For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them.

The main issue is that the skills needed to make a product can be different from the skills needed to land a job in an organization. That makes it further muddy what to program.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#72

Post by rootsudo »

w10-1 wrote: post #68

Most HN posts are how to program, mainly focusing on new tools and ideas. But now the tooling is so good and the competition so fierce that the real question now is not how but what to program. For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them. This post imagines how Nadar saw his subjects, and how his subjects saw things. Not only is it a different time, but in most ca…

"But now the tooling is so good and the competition so fierce that the real question now is not how but what to program.

For that, it's essential to see things through the eye of users, so you can see the value to them."

It's always been that way. e.g. Infamous HN Dropbox post.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#73

Post by godelski »

tough wrote: post #30
godelski wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair enough distinction. Though I still think there is more contextual nuances at play. Shallow Hal seems to fit both cases. To be vapid or shallow. We certainly don't just critique those for exclusively caring about other's appearances but also those that only care about their own. Which I can see a deterioration of the vapid criticism as social media capitalizes on this nature. Not just with people, but w…

There's actual studies about how easy it is to get a job, or do well professionally, if you're handsome the human brain is hardwired to assume beauty equals -better- some how

No one is saying anything that is in contention to this. In fact, most of what has been said explicitly acknowledges these facts. Please read the conversation before responding.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#74

Post by benreis »

rcyeh wrote: post #57
dfinninger wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s interesting. I’ve been told every time (so far) to keep a “neutral face”. I smiled once and the guy let out a heavy sigh and made me take the photo again (Redwood City, CA DMV).

Can confirm. US passport photos want a neutral expression and explicitly say (not in the below page, but elsewhere during the renewal process) not to smile. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-app...

Strange, one of the example photos has a person smiling. I’ve seen several US passports recently with the person smiling. It must not be an important rule if it’s not clearly communicated or enforced. Especially since some (all?) US states allow smiling in ID photos I would think they would be more explicit about not smiling in passport photos.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#75

Post by AStonesThrow »

mlinhares wrote: post #48
ajkjk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American smiles in photos are mostly not fake, fwiw.

It is incredibly surprising to be told to smile when taking official photos in the US. I just couldn't understand the first time it happened at the DMV, the person kept saying "smile" and i'm like, wtf, why would i smile, this is an official photo for my driver's license.

It is not often that a photo is required of me for some ID, so I believe the MVD here in Arizona has got two photos from me in 26 years. If I recall correctly, the instructions were "smile if you prefer to." My expression is cheerful but not overly smiling; I'm wearing a full beard, and the photo has been converted to monochrome - why, I have no idea.

However, the camera used at MVD is clearly more sophisticated than it appears, because if you install the Mobile ID app, your photo goes full "Harry Potter mode" and animates in a 3D rotation!

I don't recall any directions about my expression for the US Passport photo at the USPS station. However, they did attempt to reject the photo for strange technical reasons. I could not fathom the rejection because the photo had been entirely handled by the professional USPS clerk and I wasn't involved in generating it. I insisted on submitting exactly the same way a second time around and it was approved. It must've been a procedural glitch of some kind. Or the government knew I shouldn't be traveling to an ill-fated vacation, and was trying to gently dissuade me?

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#76

Post by sn9 »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #53
ajkjk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yeah, that's why it has that disclaimer. Everyone knows there's an obvious bias there.

Sure, just feels like a weird thing to call out, especially when you've admitted the bias is there.

Given that it fit a pattern of commenting on what he perceived in all the other portraits, what exactly would you have had him do?

He obviously isn't lacking in self-awareness. He was upfront about his possible bias.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#77

Post by kjkjadksj »

dfinninger wrote: post #51
mlinhares wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly surprising to be told to smile when taking official photos in the US. I just couldn't understand the first time it happened at the DMV, the person kept saying "smile" and i'm like, wtf, why would i smile, this is an official photo for my driver's license.

That’s interesting. I’ve been told every time (so far) to keep a “neutral face”. I smiled once and the guy let out a heavy sigh and made me take the photo again (Redwood City, CA DMV).

I smiled for my CA license. Not a toothy one though.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#78

Post by staplung »

somenameforme wrote: post #10

A related video series showing many places around the world in the 1900s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-UhDuKZ2OQ There's a lot of really interesting things to see there besides the sites themselves. The obvious one worldwide is that this is before the mass commercialization of clothing + planned obsolescence of such, which seems to have a very negative outcome. But one thing not so visible that's really interest…

The stern bit is covered in parody form in A Million Ways to Die in the West:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SslNMLO0tw&t=20s

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#79

Post by tptacek »

pixl97 wrote: post #61
Noumenon72 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-groady interpretation might be that we know Manet was intelligent, and the portrait captured that well; you might not be able to judge food by its photograph, but a photo that makes it look delicious when it actually is delicious has managed to capture the deliciousness. Personally, I don't find it groady anyway; pretty sure a neural network trained on IQs and photographs could find reliable signals of intellig…

> pretty sure a neural network trained on IQs and photographs could find reliable signals of intelligence therein. exactly how? Or I should say, all humans are intelligent baring extreme circumstances (for example signs of genetic defect, potential inbreeding, or FAS may possibly be a sign of lower IQ it's not a certainty of it). Are we trying to say there is some correlation between 'high' IQ and outward appearance,…

It's honestly a pretty good case study of the limitations of the approach, because you can imagine all sorts of spurious correlations you might pick up from a photograph (limit case: subject is holding their framed mathematics doctoral degree) that could result in a classifier good enough to give you a betting edge, but good for little else. Broadly, you'd expect a trained photo classifier to pick up a bunch of SES signals.

Re: “There are people who can see and others who cannot even look”

#80

Post by deanCommie »

ajkjk wrote: post #47
kmarc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how simultaneously stern everybody looks with no fake smiles or hidden gazes. People were willing to just stare at something or somebody odd FWIW, the fake smiles and hidden gazes, to me the least, were always a North American thing. In fact, in Switzerland we have its opposite, the infamous "Swiss stare" :-) https://www.newlyswissed.com/about-the-swiss-stare/

American smiles in photos are mostly not fake, fwiw.

You will never convince Europeans of this. They simply seem to be unable to grasp that (1) cultural norms about introversion/extroversion and friendliness are not universal, and so the default baseline IS more outgoing, social, friendly, and extraverted in North America, and (2) because of the other differences in service industry culture [not necessarily themselves all positives but nevertheless relevant], the service industry in America optimizes for extraverted and friendly people.

So yeah, when the super friendly waitress comes over and asks the table "how is your day going", they're not forcing a smile for a tip. It helps, but they're most likely naturally outgoing and friendly and genuinely curious.

When you grow up with this environment, moving to Europe is adaptable (have done so), but whenever you go back home it is a breath of fresh air.

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