[06:13] <DanaG> w﻿oah, compare /usr/share/gdm/themes/Human/background.png to ﻿/usr/share/gdm/themes/HumanList/background.png
[06:14] <DanaG> Is there a happy medium in the middle somewhere?
[06:29] <DanaG> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-gdm-themes/+bug/211740
[06:29] <ubotu> Launchpad bug 211740 in ubuntu-gdm-themes "Hardy: Ubuntu login screen art has brightnes increased" [Wishlist,Triaged]
[06:52] <troy_s> DanaG: Bugger them
[06:52] <troy_s> DanaG: I am pissed that I can't comment.
[06:52] <troy_s> DanaG: Quite frankly I support _any_ degree of change -- and kwwii did just that.
[06:52] <troy_s> DanaG: The idiots commenting on that bug should crawl back into their myopic cave and rot.
[06:53] <DanaG> Hmm, I do agree with the "too bright" bit -- but the old was perhaps "too dark"
[06:53] <DanaG> Perhaps halfway between would be better.
[06:53] <troy_s> DanaG: Oh god it is bickering over nothingness
[06:53] <troy_s> DanaG: It is a serious no wonder why all of FOSS is generally crap when you have idiots commenting like that.
[06:53] <DanaG> I try not to take a "bickering" tone nowadays.
[06:53] <troy_s> DanaG: kwwii simply added a little difference and everyone gets up in arms.
[06:54] <troy_s> DanaG: Seroiusly -- feck em.
[06:54] <troy_s> DanaG: I so wish I didn't miss that bug report.
[06:54] <DanaG> "little" is subjective, though.
[06:54] <DanaG> I'm okay with it as it is, though, if it must be that way.
[06:55] <troy_s> DanaG: It is _all_ subjective... look at this rubbish comment:  This might be, but on a regular LCD/TFT screen, the login art has been changed for the worse. We definately need the original login art back since that looked much better.
[06:55] <troy_s> Someone should bury that guy
[06:55] <DanaG> Yeah, that's treating it as "fact" when it's really opinion.
[06:55] <troy_s> DanaG: It is entirely subjective.  For that reason alone, I am at the brink of insanity trying to discuss the various elements of art and design with anyone in that circle.  It is just borderline ridiculous.
[06:56] <DanaG> On my LCD, it may look washed out... but then again, my LCD itself is crap.
[06:56] <troy_s> DanaG: Beyond opinion.  Accepting that though, is a step toward understanding what art and design _is_.
[06:56] <troy_s> DanaG: I just want to vomit up a Tango ball when I read that rubbish.
[06:57] <DanaG> The old one looks worse than the new one to me, actually.
[06:57] <troy_s> DanaG: Worse better whatever.  Irrelevant.  Ubuntu needs to open up to change, and the GDM is nothing more.
[06:57] <troy_s> (nothing less either)
[06:57] <DanaG> People who want to change it back can just copy one background.png over the other.
[06:58] <troy_s> DanaG: Our culture is designphobic and so extremely paralysed by fear and change that it is somehow more conservative than Microsoft with far far far less at stake.
[06:58] <DanaG> "fear and change" -- "fear OF change"?
[06:59] <troy_s> DanaG: Seriously -- when our exemplary efforts in art and design are shards of rubbishy OpenSUSE desktops and scary blue ill-composed wallpapers in KDE, we have far more to worry about than the myopic opinions of two or three dufuses on a bug report.
[07:02] <DanaG> Just for the sake of experimentation, I decided to stick both backgrounds in GIMP and twiddle the opacity of one of them.
[07:02] <DanaG> As I changed it, I noticed that it doesn't really look decisively "Better" or "Worse" to me either way -- just "Different"
[07:03] <DanaG> And I still can't for myself even decide which way I like it better.
[07:03] <DanaG> (I put the dark as bottom layer, and the brighter as top layer.)
[07:04] <DanaG> So I'd have to say, I won't even try to claim to be able to make it better myself -- especially when I can't decide for myself what I like better.
[07:04] <troy_s> DanaG: Probably because better and worse are bound by the destination.
[07:04] <troy_s> DanaG: In the end, as with all introductory texts on art / design / creative fluffy bits / etc., it is about _language_.
[07:05] <troy_s> DanaG: The communicative goal of the piece is then the topic.  1) Who is one speaking to?  2) What is one trying to say?  3) How is one trying to say it?
[07:05] <DanaG> Hmm, I hadn
[07:06] <troy_s> DanaG: You are focusing on (3) without probably have localizing what exactly 1 and 2 are.
[07:06] <DanaG> I hadn't thought of art as language.
[07:06] <troy_s> DanaG: Nothing more nothing less.  It is also largely why people cannot appreciate Andy Warhol's contributions in the context of say -- today.
[07:06] <troy_s> DanaG: Art and design is language and being such, it morphs to fit the time / era / culture that develops it.
[07:07] <troy_s> DanaG: In Ubuntu and FOSS land, we have a hard time accepting that the hard and fast rules that apply to code don't exist.
[07:07] <troy_s> DanaG: There are most certainly 'rules', but they shift a little more mercurially than hard math / code.
[07:08] <troy_s> DanaG: Even still, without identifying WHO and WHAT, it is hard to get to HOW.
[07:09] <troy_s> DanaG:  It is far easier to bicker about fictional terms such as 'usability' or spit out worthless 'better' or 'ugly' than it is to actually discuss the complexities of audience and goal.
[07:10] <DanaG> Hmm, I also wonder: how many users actually consciously think about how their desktops look?
[07:10] <DanaG> I see many people use the XP default wallpaper and visual style, since they simply don't bother changing it.
[07:11] <DanaG> I do like how Ubuntu tries to be distinctive with its colors -- it's wonderful to get away from the "same old, same old" blues.
[07:11] <troy_s> DanaG: Well probably not.  Arguably a quick examination of the bulk of everyday users would reveal a photo of something personal on the desktop.
[07:12] <troy_s> DanaG: Children, an event, etc.
[07:12] <DanaG> aah, s/see many people/know many people who/
[07:12] <troy_s> yeah
[07:13] <DanaG> I guess art, like IT (surprisingly), is one of those fields where you either get hate from users, or get no notice at all.
[07:13] <DanaG> eh
[07:13] <DanaG> maybe not.
[07:13] <DanaG> That's an exaggeration, perhaps.
[07:13] <troy_s> DanaG: Needless to say that in this era, the computer is a personal living space -- probably somehow reflected in those personal pictures stuck on the wallpapers.  This isn't about usable -- this is about living and breathing in a new area.
[07:14] <DanaG> HP's slogan is "The Personal Computer is Personal Again" -- or something like that.
[07:14] <DanaG> "Again" -- when was it before, and was it ever NOT?
[07:15] <troy_s> DanaG: No, I don't think it _was_.  It certainly _is_.
[07:16] <troy_s> DanaG: And yet many proponents of the status quo out in FOSS land keep trying to push this strange detachment -- to create an emotional vacuum with the desktop presence.
[07:16] <DanaG> Thus that slogan seems "cool" but actually odd, since I don't think it was ever "not"
[07:16] <troy_s> DanaG: Look at OpenSUSE's absolutely crap presence for example.
[07:17] <DanaG> The plain green background?  Might as well not be there at all.
[07:17] <troy_s> DanaG: Fedora 7 was the most bold step in the _proper_ direction in my estimation... only it appears that Diana walked away from the tripe.
[07:17] <troy_s> DanaG: Exactly.
[07:17] <troy_s> DanaG: And there are actual blogs from the creator of that tripe on 'how to create a wallpaper'.
[07:17] <troy_s> DanaG: Which cracks me up.
[07:17] <DanaG> Fedora 7... oh, the hot air balloons -- that's cool branding.
[07:17] <troy_s> DanaG: Anyways, I'm off.  Be good and keep thinking.
[07:18] <DanaG> I'm hoping this Heron can become as well recognized as that.
[07:18] <troy_s> DanaG: Branding?  I believe the elusive term 'brand' is something given by your audience.  You can't create brand.
[07:20] <troy_s> DanaG: Here is a good quote:
[07:21] <troy_s> DanaG: "The identity is not a brand.  The brand is the perception formed by the audience about a company, person, or idea.  This perception is the culmination of logo, visuals, identity program, messages, products, and actions.  A designer cannot 'make' a brand.  Only the audience can do this.  The designer forms the foundation of the message with the logo and identity system."
[07:22] <troy_s> DanaG: Quite a brilliant quote really.
[07:22] <troy_s> -- AdamsMorioka
[07:22] <DanaG> Yeah. I was trying to figure out exactly what you meant, and that answers it perfectly.
[07:23] <troy_s> DanaG: That isn't the first time it has been approached that way, but the quote illuminates it quite well.
[07:24] <DanaG> Oh yeah, if you have to go somewhere... don't let me keep you longer than you intend to stick around.
[07:25] <DanaG> (for example, I know I'll often stay up later than I intend to, when I'm talking online.)
[20:05] <TuxIce> hey, how do i join the artwork team
[20:07] <TuxIce> anybody?