News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by hgq on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:29PM (#18858735)
I hope this crap of having drawings instead of actual text never catches on.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by bahador on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:35PM (#18858788)
The author is an artist/illustrator. That is her medium. http://wendymacnaughton.com/
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by basil-rash on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:50PM (#18858963)
I don't think we should tell artists what they can/can't do, but I do think it would be reasonable for the New York Times to enforce that all content they host is made as accessible as reasonably possible, for some definition of that.

This could be made much more accessible by just including appropriate captions, and doing so would benefit a large part of the community.

[dead]
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by dpark on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:42PM (#18858880)
You may not like it (I don't either), but calling professional illustrations "infantile" is somewhat absurd.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by mturmon on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:49PM (#18858958)
I wonder if Christoph Niemann's beautiful drawings could change your mind: https://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/02/yet-another-bra...
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by zython on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:44PM (#18858906)
How's that infantile ?

As far as I can see all the people are more or less drawn anatomically correct and IMO it looks good.

Have you ever seen something drawn by an infant ?

Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by drusepth on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:58PM (#18859052)
I would imagine the OP you're responding to was referring to the "drawings" of text, which look straight out of one of those kindergarten "write this letter 100 times to practice it" books.

The people/illustrations are pretty good, and wouldn't be out of the ordinary accompanying regular text.

Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by dpark on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @04:53PM (#18860106)
> I would imagine the OP you're responding to was referring to the "drawings" of text, which look straight out of one of those kindergarten "write this letter 100 times to practice it" books.

This would make a lot more sense if this was at all what kindergarten handwriting looks like.

Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by Retra on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:57PM (#18859039)
The criticism is not because it is "by" an infant, but "for" an infant.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by code_duck on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @03:02PM (#18859101)
I’m skeptical that that is actually the intended audience, though
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by Retra on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @03:11PM (#18859178)
Obviously not. And it's not a fair criticism either way, but that is the criticism. Nobody is accusing the author of drawing like an infant.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by code_duck on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @09:01PM (#18861675)
Infantile might be a bit of an exaggeration. Juvenile, perhaps?
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by Retra on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @07:07PM (#18870342)
Well I'd say neither of those things. The gulf between a child and an adult is really not that wide when it comes to matters such as taste and reasoning ability.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by code_duck on Wednesday January 09, 2019 @08:20PM (#18870707)
Really, so there’s not much difference between infants and adults when it comes to taste and reasoning ability. That’s an unusual assertion.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by mlindner on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:46PM (#18858920)
An artist and illustrator can use fonts or create their own.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by nkrisc on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:52PM (#18858981)
Then I would suggest she work on her penmanship. I found it very difficult to read.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by snazz on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:36PM (#18858800)
I agree that it’s annoying for a longform article or something like documentation, but with the drawings on the sides I think it works fine for this application.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by Forbo on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:46PM (#18858919)
If they provided caption text so it wasn't as accessibility hostile then it might be somewhat excusable.

As it was, trying to read the handwriting was definitely annoying.

Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by ryanmcbride on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:52PM (#18858988)
I don't have an issue with the format itself, but you're absolutely right that it's an accessibility nightmare. The worst part is that it's so easy for it not to be.

I thought maybe since there's no descriptive text alongside images, that there was probably something in the alt tags. However, the alt tags for each image are just empty quotes. For all intents and purposes this is just a blank page for anyone using a screen reader.

Hey everyone, use descriptive alt tags for your images. It takes 10 seconds and makes a big difference.

Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by legohead on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:41PM (#18858866)
Don't tell The Oatmeal!
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by btashton on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @03:02PM (#18859096)
I actually really enjoyed it as a short illustrated story. If this was written as a formal NTY article, it would have been five sentences and not particularly memorable.
Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by darkpuma on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @03:41PM (#18859456)
>"If this was written as a formal NTY article, it would have been five sentences and not particularly memorable."

Maybe an attempt should have been made to do the story justice then. Discuss where these plastic things came from, who got the idea and when? How did their use spread? And the story doesn't even contain any hint of environmental criticism.

It's an incredibly weak article, and you can tell the editors knew that because of the vague headline they created for it, meant to make people curious. If the headline said "The $0.006 'Plastic Grass' in Your Sushi Container Is Doing an Important Job" far fewer people would have clicked on the article because 'it keeps food separate' is self-evident to anybody who's ever seen it. Better yet would be "The $0.006 'Plastic Grass' in Your Sushi Container Is For Keeping Food Separate." The brief digression into the original bamboo leaf form was slightly interesting, but this article should have gone much deeper to justify itself.

Re:The $0.006 Object in a Sushi Container by pvaldes on Tuesday January 08, 2019 @02:54PM (#18859009)
Short question, Short answer with nice drawings as a bonus. Perfect and logical way to send the message and a lot of time saved for the reader. There is not need to rewrite "the brothers Karamazov ate on a sushi restaurant" for such simple question.