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Black Is The New Beige
An anonymous submitter writes: "Spurred by Apple's innovations and the dangers of commoditization, computer makers are finally moving beyond beige. Rather than exploring diverse ideas, however, they have made a decision reminiscent of the fashionistas: black is the new beige (a NYTimes story)."
If you're looking to go beyond the boring black and/or beige, here are a few nice case sources:
www.lovermecases.com
www.colorcases.com
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Yes folks its Cosmos "Desktop and Tower Outfits for the girl about town"
Feb: Black is back, everything will be black for ever
May: Beige is the new Black
June: Curved monitors are the new Flat Screens
July: Oooh look at the pretty iMac and "how to make your keyboard match your nail polish"
Sept: Black is back
November: The must have USB accessories of the season, can you use your USB security key as an earing.. ifs its the D&G one you can
December: Your Colour Therapy Horoscope for the coming year, how the colour of your PC case can change your life.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
...the original Apple II in 1977. Steve Jobs wanted a neutral color that would blend in to the average home.
It's sitting underneath your desk. I have more important things to do than say:
"Hey, look at my fucking computer. Look at that shit right there. You see that, motherfucker? That's a sweet looking machine. It's sweet enough that I could fuck one of its ports in the back. And look at that fucking neon light in it! Bad ass! You see how I ran my cables right there? Fucking 'leet, ain't it? And look at this shit over here, that's a goddamn SCSI card, bitch. You see the little red light on the card? That shit actually came with it, those fuckers at Adaptec already slammed the card before I even got it! Hey, shitface, get back over here, I'm not done showing you my 'rig'. That right there is a fucking CD burner, ass-fucker. You see that? I can burn a CD so fucking fast it'd scare the fucking RIAA, man. And would you fucking look at this shit! Holy fucking shit! This is a fucking DVD-ROM drive. I can watch fucking *movies* and shit on this motherfucker. *MOVIES*! And look right here. This case has no fewer than fucking 10 fans! 10, motherfucker! It sounds like a goddamn freight train up in this motherfucker! Or a fucking plane taking off at the fucking airport! Hey, bitch, speaking of airport, let me show you my slammed fucking laptop, this damn this is choice..."
If everyone used #000000 black, it would be fine. All black things would be black. But Dell's black is really dark grey, and someone else's black is really navy blue, and someone else's is a lighter dark grey. Looks almost as silly as having 4 drives that are 4 different shades of beige, none of which are the shade of the case.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
--- Steve Jobs on Design ---
Fortune Magazine: What has always distinguished the products of the
companies you've led is the design aesthetic. Is your obsession with design
an inborn instinct or what?
Steve Jobs: We don't have good language to talk about this kind of thing.
In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer. It's interior decorating.
It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be
further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a
man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers
of the product or service. The iMac is not just the colour or translucence or
the shape of the shell. The essence of the iMac is to be the finest possible
consumer computer in which each element plays together.
On our latest iMac, I was adamant that we get rid of the fan, because it is
much more pleasant to work on a computer that doesn't drone all the time.
That was not just "Steve's decision" to pull out the fan; it required an
enormous engineering effort to figure out how to manage power better and do
a better job of thermal conduction through the machine. That is the furthest
thing from veneer. It was at the core of the product the day we started.
This is what customers pay us for--to sweat all these details so it's easy
and pleasant for them to use our computers. We're supposed to be really good
at this. That doesn't mean we don't listen to customers, but it's hard for
them to tell you what they want when they've never seen anything remotely
like it.
fortune - january 24, 2000
regards,
john penner