As programmers and as engineers, we often seek objective metrics to judge the value of things, neglecting aesthetic value and value that cannot easily be reduced to objective metrics.
This accessible paper reminds us that reasoning is not dispassionate and that we should attend to aesthetic matters as well.
The paper itself is in the context of education and seeks how to convey to students the importance and value of a subject matter.
Yes. I tried that with some software-based synthesisers (like the SWAM violin and Reason's Friktion) which are designed for human-playing (humans controlling the VST through a device that emits MIDI CC control messages) but my understanding is that the modulation that skilled human players perform with tends to be better/more desirable than what software modulators can currently achieve.
There are subtle and deliberate deviations in timing and elements like vibrato when a human plays the same song on an instrument twice, which is partly why (aside from recording tech) people prefer live or human musicians.
Think about how precise and exacting a computer can be. It can play the same notes in a MIDI editor with exact timing, always playing note B after 18 seconds of playing note A. Human musicians can't always be that precise in timing, but we seem to prefer how human musicians sound with all of the variations they make. We seem to dislike the precise mechanical repetition of music playback on a computer comparatively.
I think the same point generalises into a general dislike on the part of humans of sensory repetition. We want variety. (Compare the first and second grass pictures at [0] and you will probably find that the second which has more "dirt" and variety looks better.) "Semantic satiation" seems to be a specific case of the same tendency.
I'm not saying that's something a computer can't achieve eventually but it's something that will need to be done before machines can replace musicians.
I'm impressed. That's the most thorough and well-researched comment I've seen on Hackernews, ever. Thank you for taking the time and effort in writing it up.
I like having greater content area by default, and the text next to an icon in the Gmail Android app is nice too. (The spam button, with its explanation mark, could easily be mistaken for an important button otherwise.)
It's one of the reasons I prefer how Vim and VS Code look over Intellij and Visual Studio standard. Let me better see what I'm focusing on without distractions (the content) instead of shoving a gazillion buttons on your UI in the default view.
Edit: I was too harsh about Intellij I think. The old UI I was thinking of doesn't look bad in my opinion, but I still think I would have enjoyed my experience with Visual Studio more if it had a stronger focus on content (the code) visually.
I remember, as a child, having fun with a Yoshi (from Mario) fangame that pretended like he was in Windows 95/98. It might have been this one. https://youtu.be/AwZfivyZ20c?t=184
This accessible paper reminds us that reasoning is not dispassionate and that we should attend to aesthetic matters as well.
The paper itself is in the context of education and seeks how to convey to students the importance and value of a subject matter.