Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 451 posts

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#161

Post by eitland »

JoeSmithson wrote: post #139
hyperdeficit wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hadn't even thought of this specifically, but after it was mentioned in the initial post I realized just how much that is my use case most of the time and how often I am fighting with google maps to accomplish what are relatively simple tasks like adding an additional point along a route. If you are trying to add multiple additional points on a route it gets even worse. This is all much worse on the Android app as…

I just tested this and it works as follows; - Open Maps - Search destination. It autocompletes after about 5 characters - Select destination - Screen changes to infobox about the location. There is a prominent "Directions" button - Press "Directions" - It changes to a route view, the Start is autocompleted to Current Location but obviously editable - Press into start location edit box - I can type location or "Choose…

That is 9 or so manual steps and it doesn't become clear until step 7 or so that it can even be done! There's nothing intuitive about this and when someone knows how it works that must be because they've either learned it from someone or kept on experimenting with it until they figured it out.

compare this to the original that they "simplified" away:

- Open app in navigation mode (step 1)

- it shows two boxes, where you are going from and where you are going to

- fill said boxes. There is a button next to from to choose current destination. (step 2 and 3)

- click get directions (step 4)

Compared to the current "simple" version it is immediately clear and there are fewer steps and less things you need to know.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#162

Post by daddylonglegs »

cabaalis wrote: post #8

What is this? Are these tweets? It's like reading a programming language where vast amounts of syntax is optional. This style of blogging is making the world worse.

Twitter is a great (as in terrible) example. I only enable javascript for a few websites so - when I click on a link to twitter - I see the twitter page being rendered and then this is all erased and twitter puts up a screen demanding that that I click on a link to see the content. After this click and a further page load I get to see a few hundred characters (the actual message) and a ton of rubbish, all of which was downloaded and rendered the first time round.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#164

Post by zelos »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #150
sonofaplum wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?

Selecting/Creating waypoints has been a digital mapping-feature of every service/tool I have used since digital mapping/navigation became a thing. From garmin hand-held off-road GPS topo navigation systems to units used for fishing to hiking/biking. It has been a cornerstone of digital navigation since the things were invented. To claim that it's an edge-case ignores history and instead highlights how _you_ use the t…

Search along route is surprisingly hard to get right. Results near to the route geographically are not necessarily near in terms of disruption to your route (other side of a river, wrong side of a highway etc.)

To add to the "things are getting worse" narrative, we implemented this properly back in the days when sat navs were still relatively exciting things. Last I saw the algorithm was to do a lightweight route plan through nearby search results and find the ones that made the smallest difference to your arrival time at your final destination. I don't think the google maps search API does that yet, although I haven't worked in the area for quite a while.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#165

Post by jakelazaroff »

hyperdeficit wrote: post #97
sonofaplum wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that use case is that common? And why do you think google maps should elevate that particular use case above other competing use cases?

I hadn't even thought of this specifically, but after it was mentioned in the initial post I realized just how much that is my use case most of the time and how often I am fighting with google maps to accomplish what are relatively simple tasks like adding an additional point along a route. If you are trying to add multiple additional points on a route it gets even worse. This is all much worse on the Android app as…

> This is all much worse on the Android app as well, where it makes the assumption that your use case is to get from where you are right now to somewhere else.

That strikes me as a fantastic assumption. I wonder what percentage of routes involve the user’s current location? I bet it’s high!

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#166

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

FussyZeus wrote: post #61
sonofaplum wrote: post #20

There are some good points here, but of course I am going to ignore those to talk instead about the stuff I disagree with! The section about google maps follows a form of criticism that is widespread and particularly annoys me, namely => popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y', therefore x is hopelessly borked, poorly designed, and borderline useless. There is always room for improvement, but a…

Except the guesses need to be good . I make it a point to avoid criticizing applications for not being power usery enough but there's a line you can draw where it becomes clear that the guesses are too frequent and consuming too much computing power, just to be ignored. I've seen this a lot with my mother in particular, who is certainly not a power user but knows enough to get by, struggle to use software that's tryi…

It's like how Microsoft announced they were going to use advanced AI to predict when would be a good time to reboot people's PCs for updates instead of, you know, just fucking letting them pick.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#167

Post by sigstoat »

seriesf wrote: post #46
phonon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feel free to find a chipset on the market that can decode hundreds of channels of Full HD H.264 simultaneously...

You wouldn’t have to actually decode it, just receive it all and buffer everything after the last key frame. That eliminates waiting for the next key frame.

receiving it all _is_ the problem. nobody would pay the price for an RF front end with the bandwidth to digitize the entire OTA TV portion of the spectrum. they're spread from 54MHz to 806MHz. that's 752MHz of analog bandwidth. that's huge. (i'm not even sure you could buy that frontend for love or money. ok, maybe you take advantage of the gaps and just have 3-4 frontends. now there's a correspondingly large amount of PCB space taken up, more interference issues, increased defect rate, etc)

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#168

Post by normalnorm »

sonofaplum wrote: post #20

There are some good points here, but of course I am going to ignore those to talk instead about the stuff I disagree with! The section about google maps follows a form of criticism that is widespread and particularly annoys me, namely => popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y', therefore x is hopelessly borked, poorly designed, and borderline useless. There is always room for improvement, but a…

> popular service 'x' doesn't exactly fit my power user need 'y', therefore x is hopelessly borked, poorly designed, and borderline useless.

So you are telling me that wanting to see the name of a given street without having to zoom 10000x (and even then sometimes...) or figuring out how to get the directions to and from somewhere are "power users needs"?

Give me a break. Google maps was way easier to user as a map before. Now it prioritizes ad revenue at the expense of what users actually want to do.

There are no "power users" in this new world.

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#169

Post by ttctciyf »

slowhand09 wrote: post #163

This post is GOLD! I'd prefer Wordperfect or MSWord in DOS over any of them in Windows. Same with 1-2-3, Supercalc, Excel. Windows version are so kludgey. I could write 3x as fast as I can now.

Or Wordstar.. :)

Remember when you could see and edit embedded format codes in your word processor? Surely that never happened!

Re: Almost everything on computers is perceptually slower than it was in 1983 (2017)

#170

Post by the8472 »

kabdib wrote: post #72

I had an Atari ST in a closet, and decided to get rid of it a while back. I pulled it out to test it. The boot sequence, all the way to a desktop with a mouse that moves, takes less than one second. If you boot from a hard drive, maybe another second. For a while I just kept hitting the reset button, marveling at the speed at which the ST came up. Most machines I work with these days take minutes to get rolling. Okay…

Corporate windows installations are unnecessarily slow because they run antivirus and all kinds of domain membership stuff in the boot and logon path. A clean install with fast boot and without that gunk takes seconds.

A headless linux can come up in seconds (UEFI fast boot + EFI stub) or even less than a second if you're in a VM and don't have to deal with the firmware startup. Booting to a lightweight window manager would only add a few seconds on top.

Post reply on HN