“Shit has to look pretty”
You may have heard that I retired from working on the “intertubes”. The last 4-5 years of my intertube life I began to chant the following mantra every morning while drinking my herbal tea: “Shit has to look pretty”. Over and over again. You might think that that my chanting over and over again would be annoying, but remember that everyone else in my yurt is also chanting *their* mantra and it’s also a pretty big yurt.
It’s 2011
My whole SHTLP mantra tied back to the fact that it’s 2011 (or in some cases 2010, 2009, 2008, etc) and as far as the intertubes go we’ve figured out a lot of it. The tubes work well. They are generally reliable. We’ve moved beyond the BETA versions of the web and it’s a pretty mature technology at this point. Hence, there should be no reason why shit should look ugly. I really applied this to all my work related projects and while I’m not saying that everything I did looked super pretty, I think it looked generally handsome. Or at least not ugly.
Windows Vista
Two years ago I finally broke down and switched to a Mac. There were many practical reasons (iMovie for instance) but at the end of the day it probably had more to do with Windows. I had bought my mother a new laptop; some sort of Lenovo. Decent machine. Cheap. She can look at photos of puppies and/or her grandchildren easily. It runs Windows Vista.
Now, I realize that taste and aesthetics and all that are subjective. Windows Vista is/was probably the ugliest operating system. In my opinion. Actually, people at Microsoft might agree with me on that as well. Atrociously ugly operating system.
Dorks will disagree maybe. “Who needs pretty”, they will say.
Bottom rambling line: I switched to Mac because they make nice looking computers. The laptops don’t have idiot Windows or Intel stickers on them. The hardware has a solid feel to it but at the same time elegance. The Dell I am using to write this with right now (E6410) is a chintzy economy rental car. My Macbook Pro is something solid, sexy, and German.
(Oh, I also switched because holy crap there isn’t all that shit on Macs. Yes, I know that the Dells/Sonys/Lenovo/HPs of the world cut the cost of the equipment by allowing the bloatware to be installed. Oh, and I know that if I was a TRUE computer guy I would just re-install a fresh copy of Windows on the computer… but who the f*ck wants to do that? I’m grown up. This isn’t a hobby anymore. I need a laptop. I need one that doesn’t suck and looks cool at the same time. This Dell does not look cool. There is no joy.)
Mr. Steve Jobs
With his passing, we all need to take his torch and run with it. Shit has to look good. Shit has to work awesomely.
Rest in Peace Steve Jobs. I will miss your product launch presentations.
