"Oh lord, another hipster. Hurray for their 4 years of instant mastery." is what I think. Meanwhile, some of us have been doing it for 10, 20, and 40+ years.
The design is problematic in that it promotes terrible posture. The screen angle is odd and doesn't appear to align with a user's field of vision. And it looks like a kit car that just isn't designed beautifully like a Fiero-Lambo.
EDIT: Ultima GTR is another example. An impressive vehicle except for the design.
You mean like integrating the PC in the screen as per Apple? (Or a random Smart TV)
Or the Apple Trashcan iMac?
Yeston Cute Pet PC case? (UwU)
Weird "gamer" case shapes? Translucent acrylic covered wall hanger PCs?
There are also rack PCs you could put into a case of choice if you need it compact yet potent.
Or if you need it smaller, micro-ITX.
Laser projection keyboards are terrible. I wouldn't wish that thing on my worst enemy. Even a membrane keyboard of ZX Spectrum is better, or a glass touchscreen of an ATM.
> Ultima GTR is another example. An impressive vehicle except for the design.
I like that car a lot - was pretty close to getting one many years ago - its the exterior though its not ... pretty. Design underneath - simple and elegant.
Overall this is a cool project. Not personally my favorite aesthetic, but super cool work.
I take issue with his characterization of japanese vs. western homes, though. Western homes are typically expected to be renovated over and over and last many many decades. Though the most modern ones may not last you 100, ask any buyer and they'll say they expect it to appreciate in value, be renovated and resold to someone else with no clear end date.
This stereotype is partly due to the efforts of the US advertising industry which worked with the military to rehabilitate Japan's image after WW2, given that the US intended to turn a bitter enemy into an ally.
American ad man transformed the image of a nation-sized race cult into a quaint provincial island of passive nobility.
Yeah, I don't want that part for sure. I could have been clearer, but what I meant is that the idea has been put forward that the people of North Korea have the Juche ideology so deeply ingrained in them that, if the regime were gone (hopefully through peaceful means), the country would struggle to put something better in its place.
Right now, things are pretty bad. People are starving, there are human rights abuses, etc. If you want to change the course of a country, you have to remove the old order and (the part everyone forgets about far too easily) fill the void by somehow creating a new order that is stable and effective. This second part fails really often in history. I think it might be a huge challenge for North Korea if they ever get to that step.
There are plenty of fallacies present in article. Appealing to the stuff that lasted a long time is the bullet-hole/armor meme. Modern Japan has plenty of examples of disposable consumerism. Invoking Blow and Muratori's names doesn't directly lead to "and therefore I will make a computer that does very little". Selling a good with less function as a luxury heirloom is just a common sales tactic.
A beautiful computer, to me, is a saddle to ride on - neither too cheap to respect, nor too expensive to use. That is, it's something akin to a Framework laptop with some nice peripherals and desk accessories, or FPGA recreations of old hardware. The mechanical keyboard market gets this - and it deserves further equivalents in other aspects of I/O, in the circuit designs and software stack.
The weak construction of US homes honestly should depreciate too, it's a cultural lie that we tell ourselves about how something built as cheaply as possible to 1970s codes by suburban land developers with asbestos and aluminum wiring is somehow appreciating versus the land it is sitting on.
I'd totally have torn down and replaced my house if that was something the homebuilding sector optimized for.
I wonder how this trend extends to the cities. You obviously can't build a highrise expecting to knock it down 30 years later. Do they just accept preowned apartments?
Some highrises are advertised as long-lasting, for example with "200 year concrete" and so on.[0] However, I think this is mostly marketing fluff -- if a company thinks they can make more money by tearing down a highrise and building a new one, they will not hesitate to do so, and often do. It seems that historically most highrises don't last longer than ~50 years. With new construction techniques and materials, maybe that will change.
Smaller apartments are even more ephemeral. The official service life for apartments according to the tax code[1] is only 20-40 years, depending on the construction material.
All that ornate stuff on the top was made for rich people.
People didn't go to the battlefield with some ridiculously ornate sword inlaid with gold and precious gems. That thing belonged to some rich nobleman and was an object of luxury. Though I imagine it could still cut if it came down to that, but that wasn't the main point of it, the point was showing how much money you had.
A sword in general wasn't what you battled with either, it's more of a backup weapon. But most people with a sword would have something very plain looking.
The average guy went to fight with something a lot more utilitarian looking, and simpler. They'd have spear consisting of a pointy metal tip on a wooden stick, because that's cheap and works great.
> They'd have spear consisting of a pointy metal tip on a wooden stick, because that's cheap and works great.
"Cheap" wasn't always the major factor. Some spears were cheap, but others were pretty darned expensive. In wars -- where trained people fought in groups and formations -- spears just worked better than swords.
The Greek phalanx, the Roman pilum, the lances of the medieval period, early modern pike-and-shot, etc. all showed the effectiveness of a long sharp, pointy stick.
Swords have many niches, like closed-quarters combat in cities, terrain (e.g. forest or mountain battles), etc., but the spear almost always dominated for mainstream war.
Also poleswords and poleaxes. Often with a pointy end too.
Many weapons had the ornaments detachable or had a replaceable hilt for war, especially when it comes to jewels. So that ornamental weapon could be used in both conditions, since they were really good weapons oftentimes too.
Yep, from the ancient Greek Dory-wielding Phalanges to 17th Century Pike and Shot, the long pointy stick has a long and formidable career as weapon of war.
So what? Beautiful objects were often made for rich people. In what sense does that invalidate their aesthetic qualities rather than confirm them? Average people famously have little sense of beauty. Average people don't make art.
Is there any info on what happened to them? Their twitter last said "Rumors of my death are almost as exaggerated as my writing style. Sorry for the delay; I'm catching up." a little bit after their last post. I would definitely throw a few bucks a month their way for some infrequent posts.
I like the motivating spirit here, although I think the execution lacks in a few ways. If he builds another ten of these over the next thirty years it will be good. One suggestion he might enjoy is heavy physical switches / manual mechanical reconfiguration to switch apps. A big chunky dial that solidly clicks as you rotate it to point to different basic programs like text editing, the terminal, web browsing, photo or video editing… my mouth is watering already.
Something I disagree with entirely on an aesthetic level is the use of wood in this project. I do appreciate that humans have evolved to appreciate interacting with wood, but (perhaps because of my background in metalworking shops) I think humans are also capable of instinctively appreciating the nobility of metal.
One of the main reasons I buy Apple laptops is they’re made from metal and glass. I’m also a fan of typewriters with metal, glass, or ceramic keycaps. If Apple made a laptop with non-plastic keycaps that would be my ideal machine. Even better if they would use steel instead of aluminum - they did this with the Pro series of the iPhone 14 and I appreciate it almost daily. A lot of my Apple loyalty actually comes from the fact that they seem to respect metal as a material in their design process much more than other companies.
My ideal desktop machine would probably be made from the exact same materials as a lathe or milling machine, even down to the absurdly thick enamel or epoxy paint in Machine Green.
This is one of the most badly behaved comment sections I've seen on HN.
As at least some seem to exhibit, it is possible to criticise creativity without high-school level bullying.
Sometimes people read things like I've seen written here and get hit harder than anyone expects. If you've been close to the worst aftermath of such things you might think twice about who's reading what you wrote, and its impact.
Personally, what I didn't like about the article was the lack of photos of the final product - it looks really interesting, and I want to see more of it.
I hope the author, who seems based on username to likely also to be the OP, has a thicker skin than those here seeking to bruise it seem to think. They've no right to - and them assuming they do is the worst kind of entitlement.
I believe the moral of the story is to run your opening line by literally any human ("Modern software engineering is rotten. I should know — it's been my livelihood since I graduated from college in late 2019." - literally laugh out loud funny) before submitting it to one of the main discussion boards on modern software engineering - sometimes you reap what you sow
Where's the highschool-level bullying? If the comments called him butthead or pimply-faced then I'd agree, but I skimmed, but they all seem accurate, although brutally honest. Then again I admit I'm biased for the commenters.
The author starts their piece off by calling all of software rotten citing their experience as a professional dev for 3.5 years. This is the first sentence of it.
Yeah, so? That's not what the article is about. It's a highly personal essay about the author's pursuit of beauty.
A bit up its own ass, sure. But it reflects an immense amount of effort and real passion, and I'd prefer 10 articles like this to yet another HN couch monkey holding forth with yet another tired middlebrow dismissal.
After 20+ years as a professional dev I suppose I can safely pronounce on software development and it is pretty rotten compared even to when I started programming in the mid 1990s, which may already have been after the truly beautiful age of programming. I say "listen to the young". They are looking at this craft and they see an industry. Here is some young man trying to recreate an aesthetic experience with the utilitarian tools of his world and the HN posse dogpiles like a pack of zombies. Predictable hot takes and prostration before the machine they worship.
I would say just look around, but it's probably because of some of the information I've seen that opened my eyes to it, so I'll point you to these two talks:
I've seen this sort of reaction on occasion if I go out of my way to write in a manner I find enjoyable and interesting. It seems to evoke a certain kind of innate tribalism in people along the lines of "you do not write like us, so you are unlike us!"
It's quite bothersome, and it often comes from people who supposedly pride themselves on being open-minded. As soon as you start writing in this way people will accuse you of 'trying to seem smarter than you are' and it seems to trigger some kind of persecution complex. It's like dude, maybe I just enjoy larping as a Victorian? Keep off my neck!
It's pretty much what I've come to expect out of HN, unfortunately. There's a very good chance that most of the people commenting read the first two paragraphs, had a kneejerk reaction and then—if we're lucky, and with HN commenters, we rarely are—maybe skimmed the rest of it.
Edit: Actually, having read the comments, I think a bunch of them just looked at the picture.
Sometimes I think it would have been nice to have been born rich. But then I come across something like that and I think: "Meh, the risk of becoming someone like this guy would be too high"
I will be more considerate of the feelings of the leisure class in my next comments, sir. You're right, I would never be able to understand the challenges and the sheer suffering of being born rich.
The very thing he built would not be able to exist without the ubiquity of the very "ugly" computers that he eschews. Computers became affordable because they were mass produced as cheaply as possible, with less and less regard to aesthetics.
Let's not also forget that various companies have tried to make computers beautiful, or at least less ugly. Who can forget the swoopy-curvy-nearly-art-deco computer cases of the early 2000's? The iMac G3, the Compaq Presario's, and the other ones that tried to round out the corners of the beige boxes that we were all so used to by then?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I applaud your effort to create something unique that you enjoy, but personally I think that computer is arguably the ugliest I've ever seen, and I used an emachine in the 90s...
Yeah I'll be honest the work is nice but the author comes off as extremely insufferable. The writing gives off the impression that the author wants us to see him as this highly educated renaissance man, but it feels like that impression is being forced. Which is unfortunate because I seem to have quite a bit in common with him. Gentle reminder to myself to try and NOT talk like this.
I feel this would also be suited by connecting the topic to trends in minimalism and maximalism. Also maybe a better comparison to the guns and swords (which were essentially accessories) would be to smartphones and the cases people use - it's a more similar comparison, although not relevant to the "building a computer" part.
The article leans heavily on traditionalist phrasings - "no one was lifting the most centrally important functional objects in our lives into the domain of beauty. The practice of these long-gone artisans had disappeared." And then tracing some etymology back to PIE and referring to that etymology as imparting "thousands of years of wisdom from the most successful cultures in history." onto a phrase is a statement that couldn't possibly be more Euro-centric (and linguistically ill-informed - almost every word has thousands of years of history).
"The process of 'men of strength, skill, and virtue using their hands to enforce their will on materials' should not be forgotten." feels really gross in a modern context - it's not too far off from complaining about "what happened to real men." as if the past was some glorious golden age (and has kind of imperialist vibes - why must men "enforce" their will on materials? What structure does "enforce" imply that "work with" does not?)
And then ending with a quote from The Aeneid is just... I don't know what the word is, pretentious? I'm a massive classics fan, and I've read/translated portions of the Aeneid (for school, not fun), but it seems like that work was only chosen because it's famous and old - not because this has anything to do with that myth.
There are two phrases I hate to use. Due to their overuse to the point of becoming meaningless.
The first is pretentious. Which the OP massively is, they seek to impose the impression that they're a learned and intelligent person. By appeal to classics, high art, and digressions of philosophy and ideological viewpoints. Which I can believe has place in a postmortem of a project like this; as it seems an incredibly personal project that is created in order to explore an ideological viewpoint. Therefore explaining the "why" and "how" of the project is necessary for fully appreciating the intention.
I will not use the secondary phrase, as it tends to distract conversations and lead to people interpreting it as an attack. So instead I'll talk about what I mean directly; and that the appeal to tradition and implication that modern society is a "decayed and degenerate" form of past "western" society leads to a rather unfortunate ideology.
It seems to advocate that modernity is a decayed version of a past civilization. And the obvious end point of this form of thought is in order to reverse this decay society must return to a "golden age. Which the author seems to imply is 18th and 19th Century Western Europe, due to the artifacts and architecture that is upheld; as well as the fascination with historical Japan (which was common in late 19th century Europe). And likewise, there is an implication of Übermenschian "imposing one's will on society" with that quote you placed in the middle paragraph. That the author places their device in opposition to all of modernity, and therefore superior due to it drawing from undiluted history rather than the decay of modern society. Likewise, the digression of going on Instagram, "despite my higher self choosing the latter," seems to imply an internal disgust of not being "strong enough" to overcome their weak will. Ultimately, placing themselves and their computer as a mythological hero against a degenerate world.
This viewpoint I find personally gross and distasteful. And instead a kind of intellectual and emotional honest perspective would have been much more interesting and easier to digest. One that proposes this project as an experiment to draw from the Arts and Craft movement, and craftsmanship computing as a tool for personal fulfillment. Being honest about the drawbacks and the difficulties of such a device; and presenting lessons that one can apply to their own projects. Encouraging others to reflect on craftsmanship as a viewpoint, and thinking how to apply it in unexpected places (like computing).
Invoking Spengler's metaphysical aspects of cultures is also … an interesting choice, and really doesn't sit well combined with the praise for the "superior" aristocrat showpieces...
This writing ain't great, but I've sure read far worse fake-smart trying-too-hard pieces. Usually, those sorts come off like they've got no real promise as writers—this, I dunno, it seems like the writer's fairly young, maybe five or ten years of refinement of discernment, taste, self-awareness, and audience empathy, and hell, they might be pretty good. The prose definitely doesn't stand up under the weight of all that pretension, but I'll be damned if doesn't, at times, almost make it. There are some promising elements on display.
Meanwhile, god damn, I wish HN would get half this riled up when much nastier things come across the site than some trust fund kid writing about their woodworking project. I mean, wow, this is a mean discussion, and I get the criticism of the piece, and even agree with much of it, but yikes.
[EDIT] That last bit, incidentally, is not a jab at you, automatoney.
yep - it's a bit hard to get past the writing in places: "It proffers an alternate computational reality." Sure?
I appreciate anyone experimenting with cool aesthetics, but this description ignores the enormous numbers of people building case mods, including many out of wood or unconventional materials.
It's sort of in the style of what you might find in a luxury catalog, when someone is about to try to sell you something at 60000% markup, but ladled on with a power sprayer.
And what an anticlimactic article. The only ugly piece of craft on this page is his "computer". It's useless too, which is fine, art can be useless, but I have a hard time seeing the esthetic value. In the eye of the beholder, sure. But it feels like my 5-year old having painted something in pre-school and showing it to me. Sure he's proud. Sure I'll praise him. But is it art? Well..
I wouldn't go that far, but the keyboard being such a core aspect of it but looking like a regular modern keyboard thrown in does kill a lot of the appeal.
I love this, even though it's not to my personal taste. For whatever reason, it invokes a similar feeling to seeing a Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh¹ for the first time.
Interesting and certainly unique, it's nice that they focus so much on the design process. And isn't that the point of this sort of creative project, to craft something unique that you yourself consider beautiful?
Personally, I'd like to make myself a Sandbender computer in the style of William Gibson's Idoru, but it would probably turn out much uglier than the sleek bulbous device which I imagine from the description:
>Chia looked down at her sandbenders. Turned off the red switch. "Coral," she said. "These are turquoise. The ones that look like ivory are the inside of a kind of nut. Renewable."
>"The rest is silver?"
>"Aluminum," Chia said. "They melt old cans they dig up on the beach, cast it in sand molds. These panels are micarta. That's linen with this resin in it."
Shame that PCBs are so rigid and rectangular, but you could probably fit a small SBC into a blob-like shell.
The problem is computers are an invention native to our post artisan, massanufacturing era. An artisan who makes a table, a gun, an 1800s cash register, crafts every part by hand. He hammers out the firing pin, he carves the tongues that hold the drawers together.
This "artisan computer" is just a case. Everything inside it was mass manufactured. It's veneer. It's wood and chrome switches to hide the truth.
There is room for compromise on this. You can create unique, beautiful, interesting computers with the fact that the components will be mostly.off the shelf parts. It's not going to be carved form wood and inlaid with gems. It's probably going to look like something out of Fallout.
I really hate how so many hold this awful 1800s baroque steampunk aesthetic as 'beautiful' and then lambast modern design as if it isn't.
I like minimalism, particularly the swiss school. The sense of peace and zen that comes from witnessing the beauty of a good minimalist work is exquisite on an entirely new level that garish and tacky ornamentation could never achieve.
Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but people should really keep to themselves about it. Because this guy's idea of 'beauty' is ugly AF to me
On the subject of beauty in computers, I'd love to hear what you guys' favorite computers are (based on looks only). I'd love to discover some new ones.
Some of those that stood out to me over the years and are among my favorites:
People have different tastes, so please don't pounce on this, but I found this computer genuinely beautiful, more so than the objects which inspired it.
No, it's not perfectly functional, ergonomic, or otherwise an ideal device, but it is beautiful.
I'm usually disappointed by these projects. I was not disappointed, for once.
That's cool. Still, I had a difficult time stomaching the exposition, though...all this "our harsh cruel capitalist world stifled me so I took a journey within..." (and then made some neat toys, apparently). It honestly feels very spoiled and self-righteous.
I kind of gave him somewhat of a pass on the insufferability just because he's so young. I'm sure that I was at least a little like that when I was 24 too.
The entire article has that tone, like many of the VC/FAANG/techie articles about "focusing on the tangible". Every single one reads like someone who re-discovers their own humanity through the privilege of being obscenely wealthy. This one started out with a visit to the Met by someone who recently quit their job....... I'm as sick as capitalism as the next human but if you are that wealthy maybe contribute to charity or work for a non-profit that helps the poorest among us, people who can't wander the Met for inspiration on their non-existent frivilous, to escape their harsh capitalist reality.
If you think the problem with America isn't a class problem and you have FAANG-money, you need to rethink it.
All that said, it is a neat-ish project if not my aesthetic.
Interesting, but tastes absolutely vary. IMO the VT220 was the pinnacle of workstation design. Might be interesting to see something like that but made of wood and with a flat screen.
Good Western tools are the equal of Japanese tools. The perception in the West that Japanese tools are better stems mostly from cheap Western tools (which are bad) being widely available and imitating the appearance and function of good Western tools, while only the expensive (and thus good) Japanese tools are available. There is probably some cultural aspect that causes Japan to make fewer cheap tools as well which helps with this impression. Finally, another factor is the overbroad umbrella of “Western”; if you compare countries I would put Germany head to head with Japan for quality tools, but there are specific fields where Swiss or French tools are the best, and even some specialties where British or American tools excel.
One other factor in the impression that Japanese tools are unusually good comes from the Japanese focus on excelling in woodworking tools. Woodworking is particularly easy to get into and pursue as a hobby, and hobbyists have the time and motivation to discuss their opinions of tools on the internet more often than other tool-users.
My grandfather had (I inherited it) a Japanese back kerf saw he used for trim molding and anywhere that needed a precision cut. I keep meaning to get a replacement blade, but it costs almost as much as a new one with a handle.
> Modern software engineering is rotten. I should know — it's been my livelihood since I graduated from college in late 2019.
I'm so sorry that one of the most lucrative entry-level jobs in the world didn't live up to your liberal arts hipster standards. Did they not have enough free lattes and kombuchas for you to drink while you idly wandered the gardens contemplating the beauty and spontaneity of a spiderweb? /s
God forbid I become one of those people that judges the next generation for growing up in a different environment, but this is one of the most entitled articles I've seen in awhile. The Computer isn't beautiful enough? Give it another 2100 years and perhaps a couple gaudy and ceremonial ones might end up in a museum.
This person either came from more money than they deserve, or else they have no concept how the real world works. Maybe even both. Go spend more than 2 years doing an honest day's work then get back to me. I'd have a lot more respect for this sort of project when it is born out of an honest labor, not a pretentious child's boredom.
I saw Jiro Dreams of Sushi the other day. For context, Jiro is this old dude (80?) who refuses to retire from being a sushi chef. He’s one of the best sushi chefs in the world. In the film, he talks about how he doesn’t do it to be the best. Or do it for the money. For him, sushi is a craft he does for honor.
I like that framing. I agree with the sentiment you quoted, and I’ve been programming for over 30 years. I don’t think there’s much honor in most software. We don’t honor the user when we make software full of ads. We don’t honor the computer when our software is slow and lazy. And we don’t honor our craft when our software is buggy.
Yes, this poster is obviously inexperienced. But I respect that they spent a bunch of time and energy trying to honor what they see as missing - especially when they needed to pick up a new craft in the process. I respect the old people who did things like that when they were young. Whether they led somewhere or not.
We are paid well enough to do projects like this in our spare time. You’re right - that is a privilege. But I think it would be a loss for everyone if they don’t follow their impulse to do something with that.
How the hell did this person start their SWE career at the same time as me and come to feel they have an authoritative view on the state of the industry? Maybe it's because they're a recent grad and I'm an older career changer, but I still feel quite new to the industry.
You mean: How the hell does a 25-year-old who spent most of their life so far in school being taught to write affected essays on a tight deadline for points not have an excess of perspective, wisdom, and humility?
A part time job washing floors? Any hobby that puts them in contact with the not-highschool reality? Spend a few days in the mountains? Meet someone who got into a great school despite not getting an A+++ in highschool lit?
I've been programming for 26 years, employed in the software industry for 20 years, been a SWE at multiple FANGs as well as a few smaller tech businesses, and I feel probably more similar to you than I do to the author regarding our views on the state of the industry.
Well, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder... That is definitely not for me but I can appreciate the work and craftsmanship that went into it.
Unfortunately, it looks like a great way to speed up your acquisition of carpal tunnel with how high up that keyboard is off the desk.
As long as they don't sing at the co-op cafe open mic night with a gaggle of supportive friends and family who refuse to tell them they're tone deaf and off key.
