Ive and Newson Leica Virgin One of a Kind design

looking at this
braun-or-apple.png


i don't find ive all that impressive anymore
ios7, new mac pro are really not my cup of tea
 
Roger Hicks said:
Eh? No. Hell, I AM a journalist. So are a lot of my friends. Where's the denigrating? Where's the "personal resentment". All that we -- the old-fashioned journalists -- deplore is pretentiousness. Are you in favour of pretentiousness?

You don't need to be formally "qualified" to be a journalist. You just need to be good enough to sell your work. The very idea of "qualifications" for journalists is risible. Anyone with a reasonable standard of literacy and a love of words can do it, but some do it better than others. It's a bit like calling strip-tease a profession. Sure, you can be a professional strip-tease artiste, but that doesn't make strip-tease a profession.

One of the things you learn in journalism is to use words with some precision, which you are currently failing to do. You are imposing your own fantasies, sometimes couched in hopelessly vague terms -- "Smoke: nebulous blaming, shaming, etc to obscure or confuse. Fire: retribution for perceived "elite"" -- on what I've said. You're even stooping to personal insult: "obnoxius . . . pretentious . . . pitiful". Time, I think, for the ignore button.

Cheers,

R.
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You're part of a profession. A rather old one. Many men and women, doing the exact same thing, have come and gone before you. To be successful, you need a set of skills and a mindset, which you have ironically laid out. While having these things does not entitle you, it does make you distinctly able to do something of value, perhaps a lot more than others. What about this does not a profession make? I simply don't hold your pretension that "profession" is inherently... pretentious. For me it is a simple term and for you it is a meaningless distinction because you don't like how it is used as an empty label by certain types, now the term is hostage to them?

I don't argue with the notion you can do just about anything with a complete absence of formality as long as it gets results. Hell, most of Orwell's stuff is crowded on my shelf, the very embodiment of the principle.

I'm sorry about the ad hominem, but you seem to have a... habit.
 
mansio said:
. . . i don't find ive all that impressive anymore
ios7, new mac pro are really not my cup of tea
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Are you familiar with the RSA? In full, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, founded a bit over 250 years ago? Because if you aren't already a Fellow of the Society (F.R.S.A.), I'd be happy to nominate you.

Cheers,

R. (F.R.S.A.)
 
Major Tom said:
. . . For me it is a simple term and for you it is a meaningless distinction because you don't like how it is used as an empty label by certain types, now the term is hostage to them?

I don't argue with the notion you can do just about anything with a complete absence of formality as long as it gets results. Hell, most of Orwell's stuff is crowded on my shelf, the very embodiment of the principle.

I'm sorry about the ad hominem, but you seem to have a... habit.
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Are you then prepared to accept its use as an empty label? Because if you are, it IS a hostage. At that point, it's not merely a meaningless distinction. It has ceased, by its very meaninglessness, even to be a distinction.

You want to define journalism as a profession? Fine. Then why can't strippers define stripping as a profession?

Personally, I'd trust a journalist more if he called himself a tradesman, or even if he called himself a craftsman, than I would if he called himself a professional. The last is claiming a legitimacy that I do not accept. Nor, I think, would Orwell have accepted it. A journalist is much closer to a poet or a painter than to a doctor; and, incidentally, there was no irony in my description.

Habit? Yes. I don't like sloppy thinking and empty boastfulness. If you think my definitions of sloppiness and empty boastfulness are wrong -- indeed, if you think I am sloppy and emptily boastful -- then by all means challenge me. I will defend myself as far as I am able, and I will leave it open to those who read the debate to judge who has won.

Cheers,

R.
 
I think Jony Ive's designs are good and often well executed; so do all the other copycat phone/tablet makers out there!
Sure he follows the Dieter Rams way of design, simple things that look good and that sometimes belies their lowly function.

That's no bad thing to aspire to, it won't suit those who want black boxes or Carlos Fandango wide wheels and go faster stripes....

BTW in the graphic above the calculator app wasn't Ive's it was Scott Forstall's skeuomorphism that was behind that one.
 
Major Tom said:
You're part of a profession. A rather old one. Many men and women, doing the exact same thing, have come and gone before you.
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Seems to be a matter of semantics. You could apply the same logic to every activity since the proverbial oldest profession.

George Bermard Shaw's line was that professions are a 'conspiracy against the laity'

Anyway, back to Ive's design: it's all a bit underwhelming. There might become merit in the redesigned on/off switch and change in movie mode button position, but the shutter speed ring looks a right pain to use.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Are you familiar with the RSA? In full, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, founded a bit over 250 years ago? Because if you aren't already a Fellow of the Society (F.R.S.A.), I'd be happy to nominate you.

Cheers,

R. (F.R.S.A.)
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i love the design of apple until jobs's forever departure. i didn't know i am not supposed to comment on ive's design unless i am a member of RSA.

current apple designs are really not cup of my tea though.
 
doolittle said:
Seems to be a matter of semantics. You could apply the same logic to every activity since the proverbial oldest profession.
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What? Flint-knapping?

A young friend -- the daughter of other friends -- was given a totally worthless series of assignments when she was maybe 14 or 15 (she's in her late 20s now). One of the questions was something to do with ancient trades and professions. She came up with flint-knapping, prostitution and the priesthood.

Can't help but agree with my fellow (though not contemporaneous) AP columnist, at least as far as journalism is concerned: a 'conspiracy against the laity'. The good reason for defining a trade as a profession is to protect the public from the incompetent. The bad reason is to protect the incompetent from the incursions of the competent. A compulsory qualification from "journalism school" can only be for the latter.

Cheers,

R.
 
mansio said:
i love the design of apple until jobs's forever departure. i didn't know i am not supposed to comment on ive's design unless i am a member of RSA.

current apple designs are really not cup of my tea though.
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No, no, you misread my comment totally. Anyone with your awareness of design is EXACTLY what the RSA needs. That's why I'd be happy to nominate you.

Cheers,

R.
 
mansio said:
i love the design of apple until jobs's forever departure. i didn't know i am not supposed to comment on ive's design unless i am a member of RSA.

current apple designs are really not cup of my tea though.
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Actually the hardware during Job's era was mostly Ive, the OSX and iOS were full of skeuomorphism, you know faux leather address books, Web browsers with brushed metal, scroll bars that looked like jelly etc.
Nice if they floated your boat...

Everyone can comment on design, and Jony Ive being influenced by Dieter Rams is no bad thing.

As for the RSA please find my resignation, I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member...
 
If a speaker of another branch of English, and a member of a "profession" that has it's fair share of this kind of discussion, can I suggest that Roger's trade versus profession discussion is a real, live issue but just not in the USA and related versions of English?

There are still members of the Medical fraternity in Australia and to a much greater degree in the UK who would be insulted to be described as professionals: they are tradesmen of the highest degree and proud of it. This is the reason for the British surgeons' habit of dropping "Dr" as a title and taking on "Mr" (or Ms?)- they have finally achieved a tradesman's qualification and can leave being a professional behind them.

Perhaps Roger would see it differently, but to a Surgeon of that tradition, "tradesmanlike" is high praise, while "professional" would be an insult. And as a manually skilled job, and with a Guild background in the Middle Ages, surgery IS a trade. As is image creation. Journalism's medieval background I think would be more murky, given literacy's association with the Church.

As a General Practitioner (a Family Medicine specialist, for those in USA/Canada), my branch of the Medical fraternity traces its origins to tradesmen too: to village surgeons and apothecaries. Physicians (Internal Medicine Specialists) on the other hand are professionals, having a history in university training and no practical experience whatsoever (historically).

Roger is not suggesting photography is UNprofessional, or that photography (or journalism) does not have specific skills and knowledge that raise it above some sort of robot-like activity. What he is saying (in British English) is that it has practical skills and a history of apprenticeship-based training. This makes it a trade.

And as I say, that can be higher praise than being a profession.

EDIT: I realised after writing this that I have lapsed into gender-specific words like "tradesman."
 
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Scrambler said:
If a speaker of another branch of English, and a member of a "profession" that has it's fair share of this kind of discussion, can I suggest that Roger's trade versus profession discussion is a real, live issue but just not in the USA and related versions of English?

There are still members of the Medical fraternity in Australia and to a much greater degree in the UK who would be insulted to be described as professionals: they are tradesmen of the highest degree and proud of it. This is the reason for the British surgeons' habit of dropping "Dr" as a title and taking on "Mr" (or Ms?)- they have finally achieved a tradesman's qualification and can leave being a professional behind them.

Perhaps Roger would see it differently, but to a Surgeon of that tradition, "tradesmanlike" is high praise, while "professional" would be an insult. And as a manually skilled job, and with a Guild background in the Middle Ages, surgery IS a trade. As is image creation. Journalism's medieval background I think would be more murky, given literacy's association with the Church.

As a General Practitioner (a Family Medicine specialist, for those in USA/Canada), my branch of the Medical fraternity traces its origins to tradesmen too: to village surgeons and apothecaries. Physicians (Internal Medicine Specialists) on the other hand are professionals, having a history in university training and no practical experience whatsoever (historically).

Roger is not suggesting photography is UNprofessional, or that photography (or journalism) does not have specific skills and knowledge that raise it above some sort of robot-like activity. What he is saying (in British English) is that it has practical skills and a history of apprenticeship-based training. This makes it a trade.

And as I say, that can be higher praise than being a profession.

EDIT: I realised after writing this that I have lapsed into gender-specific words like "tradesman."
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Beautifully phrased! Thank you!

EDIT: Of course, your post could be taken as ironic. But of course that's the point. Any "profession" that is incapable of considering itself as a "trade" is a bit too far up its own bum for my taste.

Cheers,

R.
 
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