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If I could, I would mod you up to 100. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the interface isn't butt-ugly, you can give me Win 3.1 icons for all I care.

Honestly, I'd take the Win32 GUI and icons over this ugly-ass glass and translucent sh!t they have going on now days.

The purpose is for those who want refinement, or have an artistic bone in their body ...

Ascetics is more than just beauty, it is also about functionality and purveying a certain message which affect peoples productivity. Just as architecture is the embodiment of certain qualities - a particular style of icons, colours, desktop and so forth can produce an response which either increases or decreases productivity.

If the GUI itself is well laid out, the colours and icon design purvey a sense of optimism, inviting and a sense of using the computer being a pleasure rather than a chore - one can easily find that their overall productivity can increase as a result. Where as an purely functional GUI might get the job done it might also drive a wedge between the end user and the computer so that it turns into something they would rather not use.

Edited 2009-09-07 23:52 UTC

There is no way in hell icons need to be a megabyte a piece in order to purvey whatever subtle message you think people can't get their work done without.

And your gate for boarding is 12C.

I'd like to see a real double blind scientific study actually measuring productivity with different sets of icons. Science, Man, Science! No need to argue based upon one's individual whims.

You mean like complaining for changing the font off a fourniture catalog?

You bet, what is wrong with these people?

Edited 2009-09-08 00:27 UTC

Get a grip.

"Everyone" reading this is concerned because they're interested. Is there something wrong with wanting or appreciating aesthetic refinement? Well, I suppose it's off to the gulag/"B" Ark for me and a lot of people then. ;-)

I'm vacillating on the Telephone Sanitizers.

The world is NOT in a bad shape today. Crime, wars, poverty hunger, disease - everything is at the lowest point since the beginning of history. Check the classics of world literature from any century, and there were always people to whom the past equivalents of beautiful icons were important. So please stop fussing.

I'm not sure how you can state that with any degree of certainty. And in any event, it is a very relative statement.

Of course, the (human) world has been in terrible shape since the dawn of human history, and likely long before that. The fossil record shows that we'd started breaking the backs of each other's skulls open with clubs by the time of Homo Habilis.

I'm amazed that you could look at the hunger, the pervading poverty, the sickness, the war, the pervading injustice, the widespread prejudice, and the gross, unnecessary, avoidable level suffering in this world... and claim that just because you think you have some reason to believe that things are a little better today, that the world is not in bad shape.

It boggles the mind.

Are you sure you are not just cherry-picking the good you see?

Of course you are. We all do. We'd all go mad otherwise.

Edited 2009-09-09 20:29 UTC

The world is NOT in a bad shape today. Crime, wars, poverty hunger, disease - everything is at the lowest point since the beginning of history. Check the classics of world literature from any century, and there were always people to whom the past equivalents of beautiful icons were important. So please stop fussing. "

I would ask that you please walk outside and have a look around you. Unemployment is currently the highest as it has been in more than 25 years and continuing to rise. The numbers of homeless and sick are increasing at an alarming rate. No new jobs are being created, yet thousands of jobs are being lost every day. You may live in some type of fallacy world, but the numbers themselves prove otherwise.