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adoration for none posted:I'm really amazed at how much money investors are willing to blow on vaporware products. Their thought process is literally "does this sound cool?" "Do these dudes with fake glasses look smart?" Hell yeah here's 10 million!! Investors aren't scientists, they're businessmen, and therefore just as susceptible to bullshit as anyone else. They don't do research, they Make Investment Decisions™. Mister Facetious fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Sep 16, 2020 |
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Sep 16, 2020 07:24
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Greater Fool Theory
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Sep 16, 2020 07:37
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Mister Facetious posted:Investors aren't scientists, they're businessmen, and therefore just as susceptible to bullshit as anyone else. Scientists are just as susceptible to bullshit as everyone else, too, expertise being domain-specific and what not.
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Sep 16, 2020 07:43
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Anza Borrego posted:GM’s CEO just did a presser where she asserted they had done “appropriate due diligence” on their $2B offer My understanding is that this deal has virtually no risk for GM so they don’t care.
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Sep 16, 2020 11:28
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Tbf, investing in a scam is a good business decision as long as you get out before it's exposed.
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Sep 16, 2020 12:32
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adoration for none posted:I'm really amazed at how much money investors are willing to blow on vaporware products. Their thought process is literally "does this sound cool?" "Do these dudes with fake glasses look smart?" Hell yeah here's 10 million!! If you wait until there's an MVP and everyone else knows that it works (or doesn't work, more likely) how are you going to make boatloads of money?
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Sep 16, 2020 15:10
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adoration for none posted:I'm really amazed at how much money investors are willing to blow on vaporware products. Their thought process is literally "does this sound cool?" "Do these dudes with fake glasses look smart?" Hell yeah here's 10 million!! In hardware land an MVP can cost millions. It is a recognized problem right now that VC ignores hardware because early investment in software is so much cheaper per investment.
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Sep 16, 2020 15:59
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MickeyFinn posted:In hardware land an MVP can cost millions. It is a recognized problem right now that VC ignores hardware because early investment in software is so much cheaper per investment. From a development perspective, I think it also comes from a complete ignorance of how difficult it is to get software right. Apple gets a lot of poo poo for basically being a marketing company that doesn't make any concrete innovations, but that misses the incredibly about of research and testing and everything that went into making the iPhone as usable as it was, and how much other companies benefited from a lot of that intangible work that Apple had put in. You don't just turn a handful of developers and designers loose for a few months and come back with iOS by chance.
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Sep 16, 2020 18:39
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PT6A posted:From a development perspective, I think it also comes from a complete ignorance of how difficult it is to get software right. Apple gets a lot of poo poo for basically being a marketing company that doesn't make any concrete innovations, but that misses the incredibly about of research and testing and everything that went into making the iPhone as usable as it was, and how much other companies benefited from a lot of that intangible work that Apple had put in. You don't just turn a handful of developers and designers loose for a few months and come back with iOS by chance. Much like with the iPod; it wasn't the first MP3 player, but it was the first one that actually reliably worked, had a usable interface and wasn't cheap Chinese crap that'd die after a couple weeks or overpriced crap that was nearly impossible to use.
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Sep 17, 2020 06:07
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Much like with the iPod; it wasn't the first MP3 player, but it was the first one that actually reliably worked, had a usable interface and wasn't cheap Chinese crap that'd die after a couple weeks or overpriced crap that was nearly impossible to use. Right on. I had a pre-iPod MP3 player and the change was night and day. While techbros shrieked that it didn't run ogg vorbus and couldn't be loaded with their own special directory structure, the vast majority of people found the hardware and software combination easy and did what they wanted. Apple excels at that, making things just work.
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Sep 17, 2020 09:28
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Man, gently caress .ogg files. There were like, only three things that played them.
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Sep 17, 2020 19:51
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Yeah Apple got lucky and has only become ever shittier since that time.
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Sep 17, 2020 21:32
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adoration for none posted:I'm really amazed at how much money investors are willing to blow on vaporware products. Their thought process is literally "does this sound cool?" "Do these dudes with fake glasses look smart?" Hell yeah here's 10 million!! We are in the middle of an enormous stock market bubble driven by "everything is fine because it's tech, duh" that is stubbornly defying economic realities. If you get your ground floor money out later, before whatever happens happens, you can happily re-invest it in yet more bullshit.
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Sep 17, 2020 22:26
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Also these investors have so much money they literally have no idea what to do with it.
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Sep 18, 2020 08:01
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Mister Facetious posted:Man, gently caress .ogg files. There were like, only three things that played them. The fan boys for ogg were incredible: criticising devices for not using it, kramering into discussions to insist you use a "free audio format". I seem to recollect that even Wikipedia was moving towards ogg. Just checked out the wikipedia page and it's got a lot of carefully worded statements: unencumbered by patent (we think), technically superior to formats with a higher public profile, trained listeners can tell the difference ...
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Sep 18, 2020 09:01
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nonathlon posted:The fan boys for ogg were incredible: criticising devices for not using it, kramering into discussions to insist you use a "free audio format". I seem to recollect that even Wikipedia was moving towards ogg. It really sums up the kind of people shocked by the success of the iPod and iPhone; engineer brains who have zero understanding that ease of use and It Just Works is the most important thing about selling a product, and just because something technically has the same functionality doesn't mean everyone is going to want to use it. Like hell, the whole 'Why would anyone buy a NES Mini when they can just jury-rig a Raspberry Pi?' thing and all that.
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Sep 18, 2020 09:30
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nonathlon posted:The fan boys for ogg were incredible: criticising devices for not using it, kramering into discussions to insist you use a "free audio format". I seem to recollect that even Wikipedia was moving towards ogg. Your attempted own is very misguided. OGG files are widely used in video game development, free formats certainly serve a purpose. Having to deal with licensing entities isn't fun and pretty much always makes the end product worse. And OGG compresses better than MP3 for example. Also, to the audiophile, FLAC is the format of choice, not a compressed format like OGG. Fame Douglas fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Sep 18, 2020 |
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Sep 18, 2020 10:06
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Isn't Ogg Vorbis the standard format in the Unreal engine? And I'm reasonably sure Rockstar have used it since at least GTA IV. Spotify certainly uses it as their streaming format of choice. The new hotness lossy format is its successor format Opus, which can reach impressively low bit rates without audible defects. Youtube has been using it for ages.
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Sep 18, 2020 10:26
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KozmoNaut posted:The new hotness lossy format is its successor format Opus, which can reach impressively low bit rates without audible defects. Youtube has been using it for ages. Opus is excellent for voice transmission at low bitrates as well, which is why it's often implemented in telephony/voice chat/meeting solutions.
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Sep 18, 2020 10:36
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KozmoNaut posted:Isn't Ogg Vorbis the standard format in the Unreal engine? Since at least 2K4, yeah.
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Sep 18, 2020 16:53
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Ghost Leviathan posted:It really sums up the kind of people shocked by the success of the iPod and iPhone; engineer brains who have zero understanding that ease of use and It Just Works is the most important thing about selling a product, and just because something technically has the same functionality doesn't mean everyone is going to want to use it. Like hell, the whole 'Why would anyone buy a NES Mini when they can just jury-rig a Raspberry Pi?' thing and all that. Also see "why doesn't everyone use Linux / OpenOffice / etc" and the OPLC, ad infinitum.
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Sep 18, 2020 16:54
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Ogg Vorbis is good, but just being good is not a guarantee that the market will adopt it. MP3 had a lot of inertia and Apple didn't pick Ogg Vorbis, instead choosing to go with MP4 AAC, so it never really took off in the consumer audio space. And, frankly, as a user of OS X, Windows and Linux on a regular basis, I completely understand why people don't like Linux on the desktop. I'm so done with the various holy wars, people should stop pretending that your personal preference based on your particular use-case is objectively correct for everyone ever.
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Sep 18, 2020 16:56
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Don't use OpenOffice, BTW. LibreOffice is what you want to use. AAC never really took off, either. And Microsoft tried pushing WMA.
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Sep 18, 2020 16:57
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Fame Douglas posted:Don't use OpenOffice, BTW. LibreOffice is what you want to use. Considering all the iTunes Music Store songs are AAC, I don't think it's safe to say it didn't really take off. It never really took off as a format that people chose for themselves, but there's a lot of it out there.
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Sep 18, 2020 17:00
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PT6A posted:Considering all the iTunes Music Store songs are AAC, I don't think it's safe to say it didn't really take off. It never really took off as a format that people chose for themselves, but there's a lot of it out there. That's the point though. People choose the path of least resistance.
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Sep 18, 2020 17:22
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Ghost Leviathan posted:That's the point though. People choose the path of least resistance. Yeah, I think we're agreeing? AAC is widely used because people use it without even realizing it because it's no longer relevant to really care if you're just buying poo poo from iTunes. MP3 is another big one because it's essentially the default -- as you say, the path of least resistance -- and Ogg never took off as a consumer format because, despite maybe being better and "freer" it was constantly a pain in the rear end.
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Sep 18, 2020 18:40
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KozmoNaut posted:Isn't Ogg Vorbis the standard format in the Unreal engine? And I'm reasonably sure Rockstar have used it since at least GTA IV. Spotify certainly uses it as their streaming format of choice. Lots of game companies use Ogg Vorbis because (for a while, at least) actually having licensing rights to use MP3 encoding was expensive as gently caress. If you're writing your audio engine anyway, why not use a robust free option? It's not like you're handing a file to someone who doesn't know how to open it; it's just there in the game playing itself.
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Sep 18, 2020 18:53
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PT6A posted:..Ogg never took off as a consumer format because, despite maybe being better and "freer" it was constantly a pain in the rear end. I mean it's clearly less-widely used but how was it ever a pain in the rear end or hard to use? If you're talking about encoding tools that doesn't seem relevant to the consumer space, and otherwise what the gently caress software were people using that made "open file" such an issue? Again, not saying you are incorrect here, I'm just baffled because I've played them the exact same way I've played mp3s since the first time I encountered the format.
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Sep 18, 2020 20:28
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PT6A posted:Yeah, I think we're agreeing? AAC is widely used because people use it without even realizing it because it's no longer relevant to really care if you're just buying poo poo from iTunes. MP3 is another big one because it's essentially the default -- as you say, the path of least resistance -- and Ogg never took off as a consumer format because, despite maybe being better and "freer" it was constantly a pain in the rear end. Vorbis/Opus are widely used in the same way AAC is. People don't particularly care how their video games store music, or how Spotify or Zoom are encoding their audio either. File format for music has mostly just entirely disappeared as a thing to care about at all and its either streamed via an internal format you don't care about, or itunes/bandcamp/whatever automatically gives you some format that will almost certainly work on the thing you're playing it on.
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Sep 18, 2020 20:41
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Fame Douglas posted:Your attempted own is very misguided. OGG files are widely used in video game development, free formats certainly serve a purpose. Having to deal with licensing entities isn't fun and pretty much always makes the end product worse. And OGG compresses better than MP3 for example. FLAC is compressed as well but it's a lossless compression compared to the lossy compression of OGG/MP3. Irony.or.Death posted:I mean it's clearly less-widely used but how was it ever a pain in the rear end or hard to use? If you're talking about encoding tools that doesn't seem relevant to the consumer space, and otherwise what the gently caress software were people using that made "open file" such an issue? I'd assume he's probably talking about that MP3 was a product of an industry group so it had a ton more money, connections, and tools, as compared to OGG which was mostly one dude with volunteers
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Sep 18, 2020 20:53
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Irony.or.Death posted:I mean it's clearly less-widely used but how was it ever a pain in the rear end or hard to use? If you're talking about encoding tools that doesn't seem relevant to the consumer space, and otherwise what the gently caress software were people using that made "open file" such an issue? Well, for one thing, hardware MP3 players did not play it. Cars that supported CDs burned with folders of MP3s did not play it. I remember, because I was the hardcore GNU/Linux Free and Open Source software compile-everything-from-scratch guy who used .ogg for everything and then I eventually got loving sick of it because it was a pain. Yes, if you're exclusively ripping CDs you own and playing them on a computer you own or have admin rights to in order to install software, it's no more difficult than MP3. I believe Ogg Vorbis (and if you want to get really pedantic, Ogg is the container format, and Vorbis is the codec) is technically superior and it's nice that it's Free. However, being that most of the time my biggest concern is "does it play on my phone and sound acceptable" those factors are largely irrelevant.
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Sep 18, 2020 23:40
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I remember learning about Ogg Vorbis and very smugly ripping all my CDs to this superior open format I also remember sheepishly re-ripping them all as MP3s a few years later when it became clear I was not, in fact, ‘ahead of the curve’
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Sep 19, 2020 00:52
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For a while I had stuff in MP3, Vorbis and FLAC and gently caress it nothing plays the other two so MP3 it is. Once drives got to like 500GB I stopped caring about MP3 sizes.
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Sep 19, 2020 01:25
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I'm a Spotify casual and I (quite gladly) haven't had an MP3 on my computer in years.
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Sep 19, 2020 01:49
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Irony.or.Death posted:I mean it's clearly less-widely used but how was it ever a pain in the rear end or hard to use? If you're talking about encoding tools that doesn't seem relevant to the consumer space, and otherwise what the gently caress software were people using that made "open file" such an issue? Ogg is a container file, it is a format that just holds some other format. That is why people talk about ogg vorbis files. It's vorbis encoded audio in an ogg formatted file. But you can actually put anything in an ogg file, you can have .ogg different audio encodings or video files or even text files. In 2020 any media player program will just have any codec you ever might want installed and just deal with that transparently. But if it's 1997 and people were still having to manually download individual codecs on dialup that sort of thing is a nightmare, where you have two .ogg files and you need totally different programs to play them. Someone will point out that .mp3 is also technically a container file, but no one would ever make one that contained anything but mpeg-1 compressed audio. Every software can play every mp3 file, hardware can be built with all the assumptions on what the data will be like hardcoded, you can't get one mp3 file that is one type of audio and another that is also audio but with a different codec then a third that has a movie. OggVorbis could have been a standard everyone used but at that point mp3 just wins because it's simple to understand, and you don't have to get anyone to understand that they can play .ogg files but only if they have vorbis encoding. If .ogg had a marketing department maybe they could have made it clear to everyone and make sure every content creator stuck to a single standard but as a free format it never really did. an "mp3 player" sounds good and is easy to grasp, it plays mp3s, telling someone their player plays oggs but only vorbis encoded oggs and not theora encoded oggs will make someone punch you in the face for scamming them with baby talk.
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Sep 19, 2020 02:20
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alternate history where steve jobs is on stage trying to explain that the new ipod will now support not only vorbis but now ogg tarkin to an excited audience.
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Sep 19, 2020 02:25
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Tech nightmare thread more like tech nerdmare thread amirite?
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Sep 19, 2020 04:30
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Sodomy Hussein posted:I'm a Spotify casual and I (quite gladly) haven't had an MP3 on my computer in years. Same. It looked like it was gonna go the same way for movies for me too thanks to Netflix, then the streaming wars kicked off so it's back to  for some things.
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Sep 19, 2020 09:22
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I've never been ignorant enough to pay money for a streaming service. The last free one I used was last.fm before it died. External hard drives are huge now, just torrent a CD once and you have it forever.
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Sep 19, 2020 16:46
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If only there was a lossless format that was also small in size...
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Sep 20, 2020 00:20
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