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If you want to talk about steelmanning arguments, have you considered that I might also be unconvinced by prior examples? And thus dismissed those off-hand refe

by kemayo 1y ago

If you want to talk about steelmanning arguments, have you considered that I might also be unconvinced by prior examples? And thus dismissed those off-hand references as largely irrelevant to the main content of your post? Jeff, they're a pair of closely-related operating systems that share a lot of common subsystems, and always have been. I don't want to say they'll never unify them more closely, but that's not something they seem to me to be doing. If you've been saying they've been merging them for 14 years, then they're really not making much progress on that. > Why would you assume this? The two platforms are very different in physical characteristics. Are you saying that the make-controls-more-visible argument doesn't apply? Because although I just threw that one out there without much thought, it really does seem reasonable on any device to me.

lapcat 1y ago
> have you considered that I might also be unconvinced by prior examples Yes. But then you're admitting that there are prior examples, not just this latest example. > And thus dismissed those off-hand references as largely irrelevant to the main content of your post? My opinions in the post, whether you agree with them or not, were indeed largely irrelevant to main content, which was highlighting the change of behavior. You could have chosen to ignore those opinions, if you believe they were largely irrelevant. You chose not only to address my opinions but to turn them into a straw man. (Note that the HN guidelines also say, "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.") You don't have to agree with my opinions, but again, my opinions are part of a larger context, which you now acknoweldge. My opinions did not arise out of the blue with the video controls change.
- kemayo 1y ago
  > Yes. But then you're admitting that there are prior examples, not just this latest example. ...I'm admitting that people making this argument have suggested there were things that supported it before. Acknowledging that people have made prior claims I disagree with doesn't seem relevant? > You could have chosen to ignore those opinions, if you believe they were largely irrelevant. It was your opening paragraph that talked about merging the OSes. There's a reason I responded to it by assuming you thought the rest of your post supported your opening statement. If you'd like, we really could just talk about whether the change to the video player behavior is a reasonable thing to apply to both platforms. I think it probably is, on balance, for the aforementioned control-visibility reasons. You? (Though, sadly, I have to go pick up a child from school, so the rapid back-and-forth will have to cease for a bit.)
  - lapcat 1y ago
    > I'm admitting that people making this argument have suggested there were things that supported it before. That doesn't mean I agree with them, which you seem to be implying there? No, I'm not implying that. Whichever side of the controversy you stand on, apparently the opposite side from me, you have to admit, and seemingly are admitting, that many people have been arguing for years that iOS and macOS are merging. My point is that if you're trying to interpret my views, you can't dismiss the prior examples as irrelevant. You may think my views are false, but my views are nonetheless based on the prior examples. You initially invented a straw man view out of thin air that I do not believe myself: "The argument apparently being that..." > It was your opening paragraph that talked about merging the OSes. There's a reason I responded to it by assuming you thought the rest of your post supported your opening statement. I think you misunderstood the purpose of the post, which was simply to highlight the latest abomination, not to make a larger argument. A 391 word blog post is almost never going to be a comprehensive argument for anything. So if you're thinking "That's your argument???" well no, of course it's not. I don't have the time or desire to make every little blog post into a book-length treatise just so that random internet commenters don't assume I'm an idiot. (Some probably would anyway, so it would be wasted effort.) > If you'd like, we really could just talk about whether the change to the video player behavior is a reasonable thing to apply to both platforms. I think it probably is, on balance, for the aforementioned control-visibility reasons. You? I've never seen an case where the visibility/legibility of the controls were a problem. Do you have any examples? The irony is that Tahoe has made many things on macOS less legibile, which of course is a matter of great public controversy now.
    - kemayo 1y ago
      I'm willing to rephrase it down to "the argument being that a change made on iOS later coming to macOS supports the idea that the platforms are merging", though that feels like a distinction without a difference to me. > A 391 word blog post is almost never going to be a comprehensive argument for anything. So if you're thinking "That's your argument???" well no, of course it's not. Putting aside my disagreement with the larger argument.... If you want people who see your posts from the HN frontpage to go do independent research about the history of your ideas on the topic before responding, you're going to be left a frustrated and unhappy person. Really, you're lucky when people are replying to the actual content of your post rather than just the title and other people's comments. :-D > I've never seen an case where the visibility/legibility of the controls were a problem. Do you have any examples? Just looking at your comparison screenshots in your post, my focus is drawn to the control-icons much better in the Tahoe one. In the Sequoia screenshot the button-outlines draw more of my focus because of how they stand out, and that actually makes me take longer to parse what their contents are. The Tahoe version thus feels easier to quickly use to me. This might be a personal thing to do with how our respective brains process visual information, but I think the Tahoe one is a genuine usability improvement.
- somerandom2407 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - lapcat 1y ago
    > You're coming across as a bit of an idiot here This is a gross insult. Please review and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > I don't know whether you framed it as such for clickbait or out of genuine obsession The latter. Notice that I did not submit my own article to HN. I published it to my blog, for the people who already follow me, either via RSS or by Mastodon, and who already appreciate my writing. I did not write my article for HN commenters, and in many cases I would prefer that my blog posts not be submitted to HN, but I have no control over that. > If you don't want any negative commentary about your article or opinions, don't post them on the internet. This is victim blaming. You are responsible for your own commentary. Your comment started by insulting me and calling me a name. Do better. Also, HN claims to have better commentary than the rest of the internet. The issue here is not mere criticism, which is fine, but rather shallow dismissal, which is not. > I too feel that your evidence is substantially lacking You're both misinterpreting the entire purpose of the post. I explain this in later replies to this thread. My post was quite short, only 391 words, and not even intended to make an argument. You're expecting way too much here. You need to think about why an author writes an article and who the article was written for. If you think an author is completely flopping on their face, perhaps you just misunderstood what the author was trying to do. > However, the merging that people were concerned about, and which was refuted by Apple, is fundamental merging that would make macOS less useful to people through either inappropriate UI choices (removing fine interface elements to support touch) and locking down the platform entirely to third-party software ecosystems. This is indeed what I'm concerned about. It was denied but not refuted by Apple. And I think the darkening of videos is one (among countless) of those inappropriate UI choices.
    - kemayo 1y ago
      > You're both misinterpreting the entire purpose of the post. I explain this in later replies to this thread. My post was quite short, only 391 words, and not even intended to make an argument. You're expecting way too much here. You need to think about why an author writes an article and who the article was written for. If you think an author is completely flopping on their face, perhaps you just misunderstood what the author was trying to do. Jeff, I don't think you can impose on HN commenters what parts of your post they're allowed to engage with. Your intention might just have been to provide an example of something that (you think) supports a point that (you think) is already proven. But people aren't required to accept your priors when discussing your post, particularly when they're doing so off on some third-party forum. Perhaps people are misunderstanding you... or perhaps they understand you perfectly well and disagree with you, and want to talk about that disagreement.

by kemayo 1y ago

lapcat 1y ago

> have you considered that I might also be unconvinced by prior examples Yes. But then you're admitting that there are prior examples, not just this latest example. > And thus dismissed those off-hand references as largely irrelevant to the main content of your post? My opinions in the post, whether you agree with them or not, were indeed largely irrelevant to main content, which was highlighting the change of behavior. You could have chosen to ignore those opinions, if you believe they were largely irrelevant. You chose not only to address my opinions but to turn them into a straw man. (Note that the HN guidelines also say, "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead.") You don't have to agree with my opinions, but again, my opinions are part of a larger context, which you now acknoweldge. My opinions did not arise out of the blue with the video controls change.

kemayo 1y ago
> Yes. But then you're admitting that there are prior examples, not just this latest example. ...I'm admitting that people making this argument have suggested there were things that supported it before. Acknowledging that people have made prior claims I disagree with doesn't seem relevant? > You could have chosen to ignore those opinions, if you believe they were largely irrelevant. It was your opening paragraph that talked about merging the OSes. There's a reason I responded to it by assuming you thought the rest of your post supported your opening statement. If you'd like, we really could just talk about whether the change to the video player behavior is a reasonable thing to apply to both platforms. I think it probably is, on balance, for the aforementioned control-visibility reasons. You? (Though, sadly, I have to go pick up a child from school, so the rapid back-and-forth will have to cease for a bit.)
- lapcat 1y ago
  > I'm admitting that people making this argument have suggested there were things that supported it before. That doesn't mean I agree with them, which you seem to be implying there? No, I'm not implying that. Whichever side of the controversy you stand on, apparently the opposite side from me, you have to admit, and seemingly are admitting, that many people have been arguing for years that iOS and macOS are merging. My point is that if you're trying to interpret my views, you can't dismiss the prior examples as irrelevant. You may think my views are false, but my views are nonetheless based on the prior examples. You initially invented a straw man view out of thin air that I do not believe myself: "The argument apparently being that..." > It was your opening paragraph that talked about merging the OSes. There's a reason I responded to it by assuming you thought the rest of your post supported your opening statement. I think you misunderstood the purpose of the post, which was simply to highlight the latest abomination, not to make a larger argument. A 391 word blog post is almost never going to be a comprehensive argument for anything. So if you're thinking "That's your argument???" well no, of course it's not. I don't have the time or desire to make every little blog post into a book-length treatise just so that random internet commenters don't assume I'm an idiot. (Some probably would anyway, so it would be wasted effort.) > If you'd like, we really could just talk about whether the change to the video player behavior is a reasonable thing to apply to both platforms. I think it probably is, on balance, for the aforementioned control-visibility reasons. You? I've never seen an case where the visibility/legibility of the controls were a problem. Do you have any examples? The irony is that Tahoe has made many things on macOS less legibile, which of course is a matter of great public controversy now.
  - kemayo 1y ago
    I'm willing to rephrase it down to "the argument being that a change made on iOS later coming to macOS supports the idea that the platforms are merging", though that feels like a distinction without a difference to me. > A 391 word blog post is almost never going to be a comprehensive argument for anything. So if you're thinking "That's your argument???" well no, of course it's not. Putting aside my disagreement with the larger argument.... If you want people who see your posts from the HN frontpage to go do independent research about the history of your ideas on the topic before responding, you're going to be left a frustrated and unhappy person. Really, you're lucky when people are replying to the actual content of your post rather than just the title and other people's comments. :-D > I've never seen an case where the visibility/legibility of the controls were a problem. Do you have any examples? Just looking at your comparison screenshots in your post, my focus is drawn to the control-icons much better in the Tahoe one. In the Sequoia screenshot the button-outlines draw more of my focus because of how they stand out, and that actually makes me take longer to parse what their contents are. The Tahoe version thus feels easier to quickly use to me. This might be a personal thing to do with how our respective brains process visual information, but I think the Tahoe one is a genuine usability improvement.
somerandom2407 1y ago
[flagged]
- lapcat 1y ago
  > You're coming across as a bit of an idiot here This is a gross insult. Please review and respect the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > I don't know whether you framed it as such for clickbait or out of genuine obsession The latter. Notice that I did not submit my own article to HN. I published it to my blog, for the people who already follow me, either via RSS or by Mastodon, and who already appreciate my writing. I did not write my article for HN commenters, and in many cases I would prefer that my blog posts not be submitted to HN, but I have no control over that. > If you don't want any negative commentary about your article or opinions, don't post them on the internet. This is victim blaming. You are responsible for your own commentary. Your comment started by insulting me and calling me a name. Do better. Also, HN claims to have better commentary than the rest of the internet. The issue here is not mere criticism, which is fine, but rather shallow dismissal, which is not. > I too feel that your evidence is substantially lacking You're both misinterpreting the entire purpose of the post. I explain this in later replies to this thread. My post was quite short, only 391 words, and not even intended to make an argument. You're expecting way too much here. You need to think about why an author writes an article and who the article was written for. If you think an author is completely flopping on their face, perhaps you just misunderstood what the author was trying to do. > However, the merging that people were concerned about, and which was refuted by Apple, is fundamental merging that would make macOS less useful to people through either inappropriate UI choices (removing fine interface elements to support touch) and locking down the platform entirely to third-party software ecosystems. This is indeed what I'm concerned about. It was denied but not refuted by Apple. And I think the darkening of videos is one (among countless) of those inappropriate UI choices.
  - kemayo 1y ago
    > You're both misinterpreting the entire purpose of the post. I explain this in later replies to this thread. My post was quite short, only 391 words, and not even intended to make an argument. You're expecting way too much here. You need to think about why an author writes an article and who the article was written for. If you think an author is completely flopping on their face, perhaps you just misunderstood what the author was trying to do. Jeff, I don't think you can impose on HN commenters what parts of your post they're allowed to engage with. Your intention might just have been to provide an example of something that (you think) supports a point that (you think) is already proven. But people aren't required to accept your priors when discussing your post, particularly when they're doing so off on some third-party forum. Perhaps people are misunderstanding you... or perhaps they understand you perfectly well and disagree with you, and want to talk about that disagreement.