lotides

I've been trying to learn to code (I'm a designer) for a while now. I've read books, played around with making things and I'm now taking the JavaScript course on Codecademy. It taught me:

   var functionName = function() {
   // whatever
   }

The scope of learning to code seems overwhelming. Finding small bugs in syntax and design is stressful. What I'm supposed to learn (language, style, syntax, frameworks) seems to change faster than I can learn it. I wish I would have started all of this earlier ... like when I was 10.

The science is never done. I hate, HATE, hate when people treat science like we already have all of the answers.

and GMO foods have decisively been shown to have no health impact.

No, the studies done thus far, with specific controls they've used and the ideas they've test for, haven't found anything. There is no such thing as decisive in science. The science could change tomorrow. What's harder to change is the laws we've put in place because of industry interests.

The United States has a long history of taking the side of big business. Even with food. Look at the food pyramid that I was taught as the "healthiest" way to eat when I went to school. Today things have changed and we've learned a lot of backstory on how much of what we learned during that period was based on industry lobbying and not science.

I don't want us to make the same mistake again. Genetic engineering is a very young science. It doesn't belong in our food yet. I'm not saying we should ban GMOs. But I think it's fair to label foods that have GMOs in them for those of us that don't want to take part in the giant human trial.

At one point we were all cool with asbestos in our homes, lead in our paint, chemicals in our water and doctors endorsed smoking. Stop pretending like this isn't a big gamble.

I'm not sure the point of this article. She didn't spend much time attacking specific myths.

I see so many people these days running to defend these giant corporations and their processes from creating food as quickly and cheaply as possible. They don't need defending. They've won. Most Americans rely on their products, whether they like it or not. I can't make the schools serve my kids healthy foods, I can't make the prisons serve prisoners real foods or make my local grocery store stock foods that are safe and healthy. Let them defend themselves. They'll be fine.

If I make the decision that I don't want HFCS in my bread or certain GMO products in my lunch, why do you care? Why block the nutrition label from saying that a product is GMO? It doesn't effect you. If you're positive that no negative consequences come from us engineering our food, then go ahead and eat as much as you want. But stop attacking those of us that want to be able to find foods that meet our own personal standards. We all should have the right to know what's in our food and where it comes from.

I care a lot about what I eat and the foods I make for my family. I know a lot of misinformation is out there but the appropriate response is to correct the misinformation, not attack everyone that is just trying to do what's best for themselves.

For those of you that want to start caring about what you put in your body, http://examine.com is a good place to start. Good luck.

(Haven't used this account in a while, not sure if it's shadowbanned. Hope you can see this.)

No matter what you think of Apple, or Google, and their respective ecosystems, I'm curious what people think of Samsungs popularity. They're a massive South Korean company that until recently was well known mostly for ripping off other companies products and out-marketing them (I'm not making this up, these accusations go back decades now covering a variety of consumer products, go ahead and Google it). Some people, myself included, don't really believe this practice ever ended. Say something were to happen to Apple and Samsung truly pulled away as the technology leader in the future. Are you as a consumer happy putting your eggs in that basket, so to speak? Do you think Samsung is going to embrace a culture of innovation, vision and design? I honestly don't see it. As a designer, I've stayed clear of Samsung products because they just come off as cheap (or expensive) imitations. As a market leader, you have the privilege to introduce consumers to exciting new technologies, UI innovations and ideas. Samsung isn't built for that. Their idea of great design is hiring 1,000 good designers and taking a little bit from each one. That's not how design works. You have to have a unified vision with a great idea behind it. Consistency is so important. I don't care if Apple is the leader for the next decade but I'd rather a more creative company took the reins.

My son is extremely allergic to wheat and milk. We have to carry an epi-pen with us everywhere. He swells up, including his face and throat, when he comes in contact with these allergens. It's cost us thousands of dollars in hospital bills, missed work and is a constant worry. If people eat something, don't wash their hands and then touch him, he'll get a bad rash. Most gluten free food is free of wheat and some of that is free of dairy too. I'm thankful for the gluten free trend. Without it, my son wouldn't have much of a chance to eat many common foods. You wouldn't believe some of the things they put wheat in, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. He can't even play with play dough. So I'll continue to pay 5x as much for a loaf of gluten-free bread because it gives my son a more normal life.

Dan Pallotta wrote an article titled "When My Business Failed". It included a quote that explains the Apple/Android war perfectly:

> I've learned that the adage about innovation is true — that at first, people say your idea is absurd, then they say it was obvious all along, and then they say it was their idea to begin with.

That's exactly what I've seen with Apple since Steve Jobs returned. Remember all the "giant iPod" comments when the iPad was released? Or the "this will fail without a keyboard" when the iPhone came out? Those people shut up now. With each product Apple released, people dismissed it immediately.

Now people are saying they're "obvious" ideas. The argument that Apple shouldn't be allowed to defend their designs all center around how "obvious" they are. Of course, they weren't obvious when Apple released them. They're only "obvious" now that other companies have copied those ideas. I won't get in to design with most of you because you aren't designers but the simplest solutions are usually the hardest to come up with. It's easy to make something complicated. It's very, very hard to make it simple or intuitive.

You can't rewrite history. When the iPhone was being developed, Android looked like Blackberry. Those are the facts. What should be obvious is that Eric Schmidt sat on Apples board and suddenly pivoted Android before being removed for "conflicts on interest." And you wonder why Steve Jobs was pissed? That's a serious breach of ethics.

Most of the anti-Apple comments are absurd. Like the Xerox thing: Apple didn't steal anything. They paid for something Xerox didn't believe in and weren't going to develop further.

If you have an issue with patents write your congressperson. Donate to not-for-profit organizations trying to fix the patent system. Contact the companies that abuse the patent system (especially if you're a shareholder or large customer) and tell them what you think. But don't use patents as an excuse to attack companies you irrationally hate.

I guess I'll be the voice of opposition here. Unlike a lot of you, I live in Georgia and own guns. My family, friends and co-workers also own guns.

I currently only own a small 9mm handgun. I'm licensed to carry it concealed on me and do frequently. To get that license, I had to have a clean record, be signed off by a judge and have my fingerprints filed with the GBI and FBI from the local sheriffs office. I've been vetted similarly to what any police officer has gone through.

In the past I've owned a Bushmaster XM-15 E2S, a so-called AR-15 style "assault weapon" probably very similar to what was used in the shootings. I know a lot about weapons and the AR-15 platform in particular. To non gun owners, they do look like scary black military rifles but they're only semi-automatic (one round each time you pull the trigger) and are classified as "varmint" guns for civilians. That means it's illegal to hunt large game (like deer) with them a lot of places because they don't have the stopping power. The reason our military uses the same round (5.56 NATO/.223 civilian) is because they decided it was easier to give our troops a small round they can carry more of than train them all to be proficient marksmen.

To be truthful, your average deer hunting rifle has a lot more stopping power than an AR-15 and a skilled shooter can fire even a bolt-action rather rapidly. It's a misconception that the AR-15 platform is any more deadly just because of its appearance.

When politicians have tried to ban the AR-15 platform, they did it by picking out features at random and trying to regulate any weapon with those features. It's kind of a mess. For some reason they chose things like the handguard to pick on, which keeps that barrel from burning your hand after its been fired and the retractible stock which does nothing but allow you to adjust the rifle to be more comfortable for different shooters body types. It's about what you would expect when someone tries to regulate something they've made no attempt to understand.

I can argue about gun from a million different angles but it comes down to these things for me:

— Every living thing on this planet has some form of defense. We as humans use tools. I don't see how you can possibly consider it smart to take away our only method of defense without providing an adequate alternative. The last time we called the police it took over 5 minutes for them to arrive and they aren't responsible for protecting individuals (Warren v. District of Columbia). That means you are responsible for yourself.

— Criminals will always be able to access the things we "ban" (see: drugs, prostitution, et. al.) so any laws would only have an effect of disarming law-abiding citizens.

— It's too late. We have as many guns in the U.S. as people. It would cost billions in law-enforcement work to even collect a fraction of those. It would also probably lead to a number of unnecessary violent encounters.

— It's treating the symptom. Humanity will always have violence but if you really want to reduce these incidents we would work on the cause. We don't know a lot about the most recent incident yet but we do have huge issues with access to mental healthcare (and healthcare in general) in this country. We also have large problems with poverty and cultural issues.

> third party software feels a little bit more likable (UI-wise) than it used to be.

That is the important thing so many Android fans seem to ignore. The OS isn't as important as the 3rd party apps. Android developers are of tremendous importance to the overall success of Android, maybe even more than Google. This will only become more important in the future as more normal people learn to use app stores. iOS has a lot of great developers that have moved over from the Mac. They have experience making apps that aren't only functional but also beautiful and easy to use. Java developers moving to Android on the other hand usually lack the experience with front-end design given Java is typically an enterprise language.

> Apple will go bankrupt again in the 2030's

I hope not. Apple is one of the few companies making an effort to design software and hardware together. Until other companies realize you can't have a good user experience without considering all aspects of the product, many people will continue to cheer Apple's approach to product development. This is one of the reasons why it's exciting that Microsoft is doing the Surface tablet. It seems like Microsoft took a step back and looked at how Apple has executed some great products and is taking a similar approach.

> Of course Windows Phone though the most beautiful OS of the three is well behind these two.

Agreed.

And iOS 6 is pathetic. I feel completely let down. Apple continues their push to make iOS look like shit with each release by adopting more skeuomorphic UI themes. They ignore all the issues with iTunes. Really, this is the first release of iOS, ever, that I haven't been eagerly anticipating the release.

I've tried a few. Nothing too exciting. The 3rd party software kind of ruins the Android experience. Google can't do too much about that.

I was far more impressed with the Windows Phone actually. I also liked webOS and I'm excited to see what they do with the Firefox OS.

My point was if we're supposed to root for a winner (which is stupid), it hardly seems impressive to use an article like this as your argument.

The reason so many care about these numbers is they want to use them to say their OS is better than the other when it isn't relevant at all. And, the masses make a lot of dumb decisions: just watch the elections coming up!

That doesn't make my remark any less true. Walk in to a cellular store and there is one or two iPhone models on the display. The entire rest of the store is Android phones made by dozens of different companies with new models coming out every day. Of course Android should have the bigger numbers, look at what the iPhone is competing against! Not to mention, a lot of Android builders will cut corners on build quality and offer the same mostly software features as the iPhone on much cheaper hardware. Which phone is your mom gonna pick? The expensive iPhone or the plastic Android sitting next to it that claims to do the same thing—but free with a 2 year contract.

If I'm being defensive, it's because I'm annoyed. I come to hacker news to learn new things and peek in to the world of development, something I'm fascinated in as a designer. I just so fucking sick of the flamebait threads.

You're right, I am an Apple fan. OS X has done amazing things for my productivity since I switched and I've done a tremendous amount of "creating" on the device people say is only for consumption (the iPad.) When my iMac had an issue, Apple paid a guy to drive 4 hours across state lines to fix it for me so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping. When my iPod died, Apple gave me a better one. Apple has earned my trust.

Google on the other hand has not. When my Gmail account was hacked I couldn't even find a contact for Google. Everything I read from 3rd parties said it was an exploit on the mobile Gmail website and yet Google wasn't going to look in to it, instead they had support docs that said it was probably my fault. Later, as an early Google+ evangelist, I had my account locked down because my wife and I were sharing the same Google account. Again, no way to contact. I've come to accept that Google doesn't give a shit about any individual customer and so I don't bother supporting them in any way.

As far as Android, I just don't care. No matter how good the Android OS gets, I care more about the 3rd party apps I'll be using. I've purchased a lot of great software from amazing developers that simply isn't available on Android. This is particularly an issue with tablet apps.

So, the iPhone is almost even in sales with the entire Android ecosystem consisting of thousands of models, many of them cheap or free to consumers. Am I supposed to be impressed?

Time to turn off the talk radio, buddy. People can't get jobs that don't exist. The people on unemployment, disability or other government benefits didn't conspire to ruin the economy. They're just trying to feed their families and survive long enough to find work. If you're looking for someone to blame, look at the people that got rich while the rest of America got poor. The ones the benefited from this disaster are the same ones that caused it.

I know I'll get a lot of shit for this but good riddance. I hope it never comes back. I've felt this way since I found my stolen accounts posted on Pastie and they ignored requests to take it down.

No topic has made me more disappointed in the Hacker News community than this one. It's frustrating to see my livelihood attacked by the very people I try to help every day. It's not the "big agencies" that spec work hurts. It's people like me. I've dedicated my life to design. I work with startups and small business to provide great design on small budgets. I don't want to go back to doing corporate work. I stopped when I realized the only people that cared less about the work than me were the clients themselves. So I decided to focus on small business. People that care about fresh ideas, innovation and quality products, like I do.

I'll spare you the book-length essay on why it's wrong to exploit the design industry like this. I'll just leave you with this: the only people that care about ethics in business are ethical businessmen. You are what you do. You can stab, claw and bite your way to the top or you can take a stand for something more important: integrity.

Next time, give yourself a couple of hours looking at local freelance designers. Call them. Ask them about rates, their design process, previously successful design campaigns and their approach to design. If you aren't satisfied after having at least tried, then go ahead and submit it to the design sweatshop in the cloud.

This thread is the perfect example of why I don't participate on HN as much as I do other communities. HN has great articles but the FOSS extremists run the comments.

1. Repeated articles proclaim: Android overtakes the iPhone in sales. What does this mean? It means that Apple is selling less of 1 phone model than dozens of hardware manufacturers combined sell different phone models. So I guess Android fans want Android to be thought of as "one platform", all hardware vendors included.

2. New article: Android hardware fails more than Apple iPhone (and Blackberry, et. al.) but suddenly "YOU CAN'T DO THAT, YOU CAN'T COMPARE ALL ANDROID PHONES WITH ONE PHONE."

So, which is it? I figured this out a long time ago. The answer is it's whatever makes Android look better than iOS as a platform. The facts can change daily, just as long as Android is the winner.

> If you want to stop strangers from seeing everything you do then you're probably better off just not using Facebook. Seriously.

I don't use Facebook. But other people in my home use Facebook which means they're tracking what I do—as a non-user and someone that hasn't agreed to their terms or privacy policy—anyway. The only solution to this is for Facebook to stop tracking people when they log out. The government needs to step in because they obviously won't do that on their own.

I see no evidence to suggest Apple is trying to kill Flash. It looks like a bug.

Due to performance issues, security issues (on a closed platform), battery life issues and finally, issues of building a strong and stable developer community Flash just isn't a good fit for iOS. I think it should be available in the App Store for those that don't care about the issues but it shouldn't be pre-installed on iOS with all of its problems.

For those that didn't read the Ars review: Apple has done major security updates in Lion, including the use of sandboxing. I suspect the OS isn't giving Flash permission to directly access the hardware. If true, Adobe will need to release an update to fix it. They should have been testing and fixing issues like these during the beta period.

I'm very surprised by the reaction here. I always viewed this community as open platform advocates. Windows 8, which seems to have a new touch UI layer and ARM support, is far more open than Windows Phone 7. My prediction is the Windows 8 tablet will see widespread business adoption leaving the iPad and Android tablet to fight over the consumer market.

That was very difficult to read. It was more of a rant filled with rambling generizations than a coherant argument. And what an inflamatory headline. I've read it twice and I'm still not sure what he expects to accomplish from his accusations and random thoughts. If anything, I feel like he needs to leave his bubble. The designers he described weren't anybody I've worked with or met since my college years. If anything, being in the industry for any amount of time beats these traits out of you.

In closing: Dear writer, you aren't that special.

Kids aren't for everyone. For that matter, neither are marriage, startups or traveling. The only difference with kids is there is no "undo" and you can't quit. If you don't want to live a selfless lifestyle, don't have kids.

My son just turned 18 months and my wife and I couldn't be happier. We won't be able to buy the new iPad but my son is far more entertaining. And I feel like my wife and I have grown closer since having him. So, to each their own. It's laziness to pretend life is as black-and-white at the writer presents.

Sigh.

I love design. I have for a long time. I went to school for it, read countless books, attended confrences, interned, learned the theory and execution and paid my dues. I just want to help small businesses and startups have great design while being able to put food on the table for my wife and kids. I'm not asking for fame or fortune and I'm willing to work my ass off for everything I get.

Shit like this is killing me. Don't get me wrong, there is still an industry around. Corporations are still paying. What it's killing is my soul. It really bothers me to see this called 'design' because I don't believe it is. You can't tell me what you're providing is anything like what I'm providing. But it doesn't matter. The word 'design' has been diluted so much that small business can't tell the different between us. And that bothers me because I really care about the success of innovative small companies and I believe good design is an important factor. It's more than a logo — it's communication, it's the difference between you and the other guy and it's the face of your company.

Why I don't contribute to open-source projects:

I feel like a second-class citizen around developers. And I don't want to venture in to the lions den. After all, I "just make things pretty", right?

I hate politics. Many open-source projects are a power-struggle with entrenched developers guarding against change.

Design is all about visual relationships. Making a change to one small aspect to the design effects everything else. This is very frustrating in an open-source environment, where parts of the design can be changed by the masses compromising the integrity of the whole.

Our industry doesn't appreciate it. Employers don't care what open-source projects we've contributed to. It's all about paying clients.

Can Gawker be held legally liable for maintaining poor security standards and incompetence leading to this? Can anybody cite related laws or cases?

OS X users — Use MetaDataMover to move and rename automagically based on embedded metadata. I have folders for year, month and day. The file name includes the camera name (we have several) and a sequential #. We try to remove poor photos as soon as we download them. In 30 years you're not going to want to look through gigs of photos, you just want to see the best (and most memorable) ones.

I find the whole "spirit animals" B.S. a little passive-aggressive and quite offensive. That has nothing to do with the effect of design on business goals. And if you have a problem with your designer dragging things on then find somebody else.

I have nothing else to say to you. I've made the value of design, real design, quite clear. If you don't understand that value, it's a personal problem.

Yeah. I did web development before I went to school for design so I've seen both sides. I even took a CompTIA A+ course at one point and run Ubuntu on my Mac.

Developers and designers both have the same anal-retentive tendencies, this need for organization and perfection that we should get along so much better. And quite often we have to work together.

I'm guessing a lot of the hate comes from developers having to work with "those" designers: the ones that should have just become an artist/painter instead of designer. That's a whole different story.