The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Watching movies is passive, and is a series of still images.

Gaming is active. The player controls the camera, not the cinematographer. Game images are not still frames; the game engine has to calculate everything to display and then draw it faster than user input. Glitches happen. Stutters happen. Screen tearing happens. Input lag happens.

All video is a series of still images put together to make a moving image. It's just that 60FPS makes a smoother more realistic moving image.

[JSWolf]

2027 is going to be an interesting year when phones will have easily user replaceable batteries.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Has anyone won a Nobel prize whilst working for any of today's tech giants — Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta etc.

Bell Labs & IBM employees have won 11 and 6 respectively.

Geoffrey Hinton, who shared the physics prize last year, worked for Google until May 2023. So he wasn't working there when he got it, but obviously his work at Google counted toward the prize. That said, he resigned out of concern for the direction Google was going.

(I just happened to remember this one because it was so recent. I don't know if there are others.)

[ownedbycats]

My friend told me to add a swear word to Google search results to avoid AI Overview. It works. Go figure.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by issybird

Geoffrey Hinton, who shared the physics prize last year, worked for Google until May 2023. So he wasn't working there when he got it, but obviously his work at Google counted toward the prize. That said, he resigned out of concern for the direction Google was going.

(I just happened to remember this one because it was so recent. I don't know if there are others.)

Hinton moved to Canada because Reagan was putting military funding into AI

[Renate]

Here's a rant. I'm looking for a USB power analyzer that will analyze USB PD and show voltage with millivolt resolution and current in milliampere resolution. Why? Because anything with more digits is just BS and distracting on a device that costs less than $1000. Look at this nonsensical display. It's got 7 digits and not even breaking them at milli borders.

[Quoth]

I doubt it's better than 0.5% of full scale or maybe 5V, thus a display of 5.000 000 would have error of up to +/- 25 mV, thus really be between 4.975 and 5.025V?

I think true mV resolution needs 0.02% accuracy at 5V?

[Renate]

You're right, but showing 3 digits right of the decimal point is what people are used to seeing, even if the last digit is noise.

[Cactus Chef]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Nonremovable battery? I've replaced the battery twice on my phone. Once it swelled, the other time it started turning off at random (figured it out when taking pictures of my cat and the camera flash killed it (the phone, not my cat)).

I believe a guy at a mall kiosk told me he could replace the battery for about $80 or so. I did consider it. The lack of continuing security updates were a bigger concern, since I do some sensitive financial things on my phone, and it seems like every day there's some new critical Android security hole that's only getting patched on the latest release.

In addition, if memory serves, the Qualcom Samsung devices are notoriously difficult to flash with third-party firmware. The Exynos ones are easier, but those are not the ones sold in the US.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Has anyone won a Nobel prize whilst working for any of today's tech giants — Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta etc.

Bell Labs & IBM employees have won 11 and 6 respectively.

Yes. From the 2024 Laureates list: Demis Hassabis, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2024, Affiliation at the time of the award: Google DeepMind, London, United Kingdom

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

All video is a series of still images put together to make a moving image. It's just that 60FPS makes a smoother more realistic moving image.

No, it doesn't necessarily make a "more realistic" moving image for some people such as myself. It sometimes triggers an uncanny valley response. It sometimes triggers simulator sickness.

While it might be more realistic FOR YOU, your preferences are not universal.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Renate

You're right, but showing 3 digits right of the decimal point is what people are used to seeing, even if the last digit is noise.

Six is certainly useless distraction. Tape over them?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ratinox

No, it doesn't necessarily make a "more realistic" moving image for some people such as myself. It sometimes triggers an uncanny valley response. It sometimes triggers simulator sickness.

While it might be more realistic FOR YOU, your preferences are not universal.

Digital and HD was a missed opportunity. About 11 fps to 18 fps is start of seeing motion rather than frames, unless you are a cavy. The 24 fps was a compromise and for a long time cinema has shown movies at 48 fps.

The 30 (USA) and 25 (Most of Europe) was chosen for three reasons:
1. Half the mains and interlace was used to reduce bandwidth by 1/2 so any detail more than two lines high is 60 Hz or 50 Hz. No flicker from studio lights.
2. The home TV power supply 1935 to early 1950s wasn't good so 30 or 25 locked to mains meant a hum bar was stationary, much less noticeable.
3. As close as possible to movie but also to limit transmission bandwidth. See also Interface.

Unfortunately the 30/60 scheme of North America is unsuited to 24 fps film. A 3:2 pull down scheme was adopted for telecine and later VHS. This means that because of interlace there are two film frames in the same interlaced video fram, so panning and horizontal movement creates a "comb" artefact. Later the 30 was changed to 29.97 for NTSC color. DVDs from movie film were stored at 24 fps 720 x 480 progressive and then player either did the 3:2 pull down for interlaced regular NTSC, or it was progressive at 60 fps via component connections.

The 50Hz regions played 24 fps Telecine and later VHS and DVD simply speeded up to 25/24ths. By the time of DVD the audio pitch was corrected by 25/24ths.

So while North American 60 fps progressive ditches the 3:2 artefact, it's still unnatural compared to 24, 48 or 50 fps playout when the source is a movie. Most 4K playback is 24 fps or 48 fps. HD from BD from Movie content varies with region, player and TV.


Progressive DVD players hardly sold at all in Europe / UK etc because there was no advantage for movies unlike NTSC (and the format is 720 x 576, so "PAL" region DVDs on "PAL" (or HDMI HD 50fps) screens are better than the "NTSC" regions (720 x 480 and progressive is a minimum!).

<rant>
We now have even more formats and frame rates for Digital than there was for NTSC / PAL / SECAM analogue era. Some are stupid.
HD should have been 2048 x 1152 @ 48 fps or @ 96 fps minimum for Widescreen 16:9 and 1536 x 1152 for 4:3 content.
But stupidly for 4K we have typically 24 fps. Really HD at 96 fps upscalled on the screen would look better.</rant>

Instead often screens are still sold so called "HD Ready" at 720 or 768 lines. HD transmitted often at 1440 x 1080 and interlaced, which makes upscalling hard. And 720p "HD" content an insult to former PAL region viewers who had 576i with no artefacts from DVD movies.

[Quoth]

We are years away, if ever, for affordable VR that doesn't do motion sickness, or poor resolution, or poor frame rate (separate from lag), or poor field of view.

Lag is a huge issue. You need head and eye movement detection with less than 10ms lag, maybe better. That needs massively more CPU / GPU than even real time ray tracing at 60 fps.

Then there are other non-visual issues to be solved for decent VR.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Quoth

We are years away, if ever, for affordable VR that doesn't do motion sickness, or poor resolution, or poor frame rate (separate from lag), or poor field of view.

We will never have VR which does not cause simulation sickness because it isn't (just) the VR display systems which cause simulation sickness. It's the games. I can play Beat Saber for hours (as long as my arms hold up). But I need a bucket for Half-Life: Alyx after less than 30 seconds. Same HMD (Valve Index), same host computer, two entirely different experiences because two entirely different kinds of games.