…a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
Stephen Fry. New tech column. In his blog. Life is bliss.
This one has a wonderful section arguing that style and substance SHOULD be intertwined in a device. As ever, his points are articulate, witty, and RIGHT.
A snippet:
“Mechanisms so devilishly, stunningly, jaw-dropping clever as the kind our world can now furnish us with are No Good Whatsoever if they don’t also bring a smile to our face, if they don’t make us want to stroke, touch, fondle, fiddle, gurgle, purr and coo. Interacting with a digital device should be like interacting with a baby.
So, yes, beauty matters. Boy, does it matter. It is not surface, it is not an extra, it is the thing itself. Le style, c’est le truc, as De Buffon would have written today.”
As a sheerly joyful cup runneth over bonus – a reference to Umberto Eco’s piece on Mac and DOS, Catholic and Protestant.
