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Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

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Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#121

Post by ethbro »

nol13 wrote: post #24
ethbro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A generation who can't imagine the novelty of performing a first search on Napster or Direct Connect. Magic!

Downloads on the campus direct connect network in '02 are still the fastest I've achieved real world then or since, with a selection probably at least comparable to any torrent site. They've just never seen real file sharing. Or is file sharing just now obsolete now? A bit out of the loop :/

One of the campuses I was on had fiber to every dorm room. I remember the banners on DC++ servers exhorting users not to play movies directly across the network. The idea of streaming a movie off someone else's hard drive certainly seemed like witchcraft.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#122

Post by unexpected »

nikcub wrote: post #35

Despite the "change the world.. break the rules, etc." rhetoric, Silicon Valley couldn't be more different today. I find it hard to imagine a Google employee releasing an ad blocker[0], or Popcorn Time raising a Series A round, or startups shipping crypto that breaks the law, or a startup selling offensive security software (there's a reason that business has been pushed overseas) Today, startups that push the bounda…

your statement is very powerful, but I think the sentiment that you describe - "projects that disregard the rules" and "push the boundaries on bad laws" could apply to Uber and AirBnB?

Also, projects like Plex, Kodi, Radarr, CouchPotato, - these projects still exist. They're not companies, like Nullsoft was, but they are definitely projects!

The late 90's was a wild time in MP3-land. Does anyone else remember:

1) Sonique vs. Winamp vs NAD debates? 2) The vqf audio format? 3) One of the big "hubs" was DimensionMusic (DMusic). Whatever happened to them?

It's easy to identify the successful companies 20 years hence, but the graveyard is littered with bodies.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#123

Post by mhurron »

anjc wrote: post #88

I don't know if this is how Winamp was meant to be used (I suspect it wasn't) but its default behaviour from its launch - with all of your music in a big giant list which you could muddle around, and a randomize play-order button - almost invited me to explore music in a way that I haven't seen since. It seems like ever since then the UIs try their best to force you to dig down into a specific album. If a track's id3…

A master playlist of all songs in your library exists in iTunes (and as far as I know, always has).

I used WinAmp the same way you did, one big list of everything I had. I use iTunes the same way. I only create playlists to transfer music to my phone because it can't hold the whole library.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#124

Post by Roritharr »

sametmax wrote: post #110
watwut wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Geeks were considered less that nothing by society. The working world didn't trust them, believe in them or value them. They were basically rejected, as something annoying you had to have somewhere in your closet. My father actually told me in 2003 that he was disappointed I choose to work in such a boring field." Exaggerating a bit? By a bit I mean a lot? I know that some geeks had hard childhood and were bullied,…

I'm not exaggerating by one bit. At best you had an "ok" situation. Nothing like the "rock star" attitude you get today. Not only geeks where the less popular in school, but the media mocked them. And this snowballed into the workplace where the only people threated like the IT department was the accounting one. The pay was not nearly in the same area. Nobody would consider buying a dual screen for their IT dev a min…

This is an interesting tidbit regarding pay. I have a feeling (no data) that the compensation for lots of professions mostly gravitate around some value that is connected to the perceived social status of said profession. Supply and Demand often really doesn't factor in as much as it should. But maybe it's just because compensation in Germany is weird in general.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#125

Post by Ndymium »

anjc wrote: post #88

I don't know if this is how Winamp was meant to be used (I suspect it wasn't) but its default behaviour from its launch - with all of your music in a big giant list which you could muddle around, and a randomize play-order button - almost invited me to explore music in a way that I haven't seen since. It seems like ever since then the UIs try their best to force you to dig down into a specific album. If a track's id3…

iTunes has had a list view of all tracks for as long as I have used it, and it is still they main way I play music: https://files.nytsoi.net/l5cR.png

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#127

Post by akx »

anjc wrote: post #88

I don't know if this is how Winamp was meant to be used (I suspect it wasn't) but its default behaviour from its launch - with all of your music in a big giant list which you could muddle around, and a randomize play-order button - almost invited me to explore music in a way that I haven't seen since. It seems like ever since then the UIs try their best to force you to dig down into a specific album. If a track's id3…

I actually use Foobar2000 mostly in "All Music" mode, too -- and now that you mention it, I think I got the habit from Winamp. :)

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#128

Post by 1_2__3 »

sametmax wrote: post #75
nikcub wrote: post #35

Despite the "change the world.. break the rules, etc." rhetoric, Silicon Valley couldn't be more different today. I find it hard to imagine a Google employee releasing an ad blocker[0], or Popcorn Time raising a Series A round, or startups shipping crypto that breaks the law, or a startup selling offensive security software (there's a reason that business has been pushed overseas) Today, startups that push the bounda…

I often read stuff like that. "Now you couldn't do it like they did it before". "You wouldn't be able to get away with the same jokes today." Or "You wouldn't be able to publish the same story today." I agree that time changes, but this is discarding the merits of those who did it then. Believe it or not, at that time it was not easy either. The people that did it had huge balls. Geeks were considered less that nothi…

And yet back then we built the entire infrastructure of the internet and connected the world. Now we use it for Snapchat.

I'm not just being nostalgic. Before quick money ruled over all a lot more actually beneficial innovation took place. Now that the Balkanization is in full swing and the battle lines are drawn we've regressed: realtime chat is fragmented, non-corporate online entities are sidelined everywhere and any attempt at widespread integration and change goes crashing headlong into shortsighted gold rushes. Why do something that works for everyone? You can't monetize that. You can't fight Facebook with that. You can't impress your financial suitors with that.

We could do so much more than we're doing today - and we did. The most painful part of being embedded in Silicon Valley this long is seeing so much potential and momentum sacrificed on the altar of shit like G+.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#129

Post by _m7bj »

sametmax wrote: post #111
digi_owl wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me he is mixing geeks and nerds. The impression i have is that the geek label came into effect during the dot-com era as a way to be a web guy without the "no social graces" stigma. These days you get geeks appropriating nerd elements as a element of their self promotion, resulting in hipsters...

Nerds is what we call today the people we called geeks yesterday.

To be honest, the difference between geeks and nerds is so regional that it's hardly ever worth trying to explain the distinction. I always found it interesting that the difference between the two words could change so radically depending on where you are, considering most of the west got the same movies and TV shows.

Re: Nullsoft: The death of the last maverick tech company (2004)

#130

Post by jest3r1 »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #30
koolba wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I didn't know he made licecap as well. As far as gif recordings go, it really whips the llamas ass!

Licecap definitely changed how I worked. If you want the rest of your frontend development team to think you're a god, include licecap or other gifs of features/bugfixes on code reviews. It's a thing most developers don't even think of doing (at least most didn't in my experience). Makes it easy for stake holders (if they're allowed near your code reviews/tickets/whatever), devs, qa, to easily see how functionality h…

Is there a Licecap equivalent for Android mobile?
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