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

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

#311

Post by taffer »

wolfgke wrote: post #13
joncrane wrote: post #2

Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

Error correction also adds some latency.

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

#312

Post by maemilius »

Avamander wrote: post #267
kabdib wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, most of a box's boot time is the BIOS and other stuff. The servers I run at work take 3-4 minutes to boot, the last twenty seconds or so is the OS coming up. The consumer PCs I use have a similar ratio. POST time is crazy bad. It's almost like the engineers working on it don't care.

UEFI Fast boot improves it significantly on modern hardware.

In all 25 years I've used computers, I can't recall having a PC that took more than a minute to POST. Ever. My current PC's fast boot is fast enough that it looks like the computer turns on and goes straight to Windows.

Maybe I've just gotten really lucky...

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

#313

Post by ajmurmann »

ryanianian wrote: post #9
joncrane wrote: post #2

Kind of related: does anyone else notice how long it takes to change channels on the TV these days? It used to be instantaneous when cable first came out and at some point it became this laggy experience where you'll press buttons on the remote and the channel takes forever to change. I hate it and it's one of the reasons I don't have cable any more.

My favorite "the world is terrible" curmudgeon observation is how awful hotel TVs (and hotel TV remotes) are. Every single hotel room TV I've had the displeasure of using in the last N years takes more than 20 seconds to turn on after multiple button-presses, starts out on a terrible in-house channel at high volume regardless of the last-watched channel+volume, takes multiple seconds to change channels, and has no re…

I'm in a room right now that has an HDMI cable on a little pug infront the TV. Unfortunately I never remember to bring my USB-C to HDMI adapter when I stay here.

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

#314

Post by Piskvorrr »

notyourday wrote: post #296
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…

Several years ago I have done consulting for a large travel booking service that advertises on TV. As strange as it might sound, there's a large artificial delay added between the time the service knows the answer to customer's search and the time the answer is sent to the customer's web browser. The reason for that delay is that the without it the customers do not believe that the service performed an exhaustive sea…

Also, it stops the client from hammering at the server...but this is a very inelegant way do do it, and devs would rightfully complain of such crude measures, so it might be necessary to frame it differently ;)

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

#315

Post by mtm7 »

Related: I was bored last Sunday, so I decided to install Sublime Text. I'm normally a VS Code user, but VS Code is built on Electron and it felt a little sluggish for certain files, so I wanted to give something else a try.

I've been using Sublime all week and it feels like an engineering masterpiece. Everything is instantly responsive. It jumps between files without skipping a beat. My battery lasts longer. (I don't want to turn this into an editor debate, though. Just a personal example.)

If you would've asked me a month ago, I would've said that engineers cared too much about making things performant to the millisecond. Now, I would say that many of them don't care enough. I want every application to be this responsive.

I never realized how wasteful web tech was until I stopped using it. And I guess you could say the same for a lot of websites – we bloat everything with node_modules and unnecessary CSS and lose track of helping our users accomplish their goals.

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

#316

Post by marcosdumay »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #155
PostPost wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example for maps is not a "hyper specific use case": "The process you WANT: pick your start and end. now start searching for places in between. Your start and end are saved. When you find someplace interesting, add it to your list. Keep doing that, keep searching and adding." That's a common use case. The problem with Google maps (and the problem with a lot of modern software) is, as you say, it makes a lot of gu…

Making guesses isn’t a problem. The ideal information software requires no interaction at all! You open your maps app in the morning, and it instantly brings up how to get to your next calendar appointment. If you’re making a long drive, it automatically suggests a gas station along the route. The more our software can infer, the better! Bret Victor has a great essay on building information software called “Magic Ink…

It's not guessing poorly that is the problem.

The problem is guessing poorly, and making it cumbersome for the user to override your guess.

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

#317

Post by basscomm »

papito wrote: post #78
ryanianian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite "the world is terrible" curmudgeon observation is how awful hotel TVs (and hotel TV remotes) are. Every single hotel room TV I've had the displeasure of using in the last N years takes more than 20 seconds to turn on after multiple button-presses, starts out on a terrible in-house channel at high volume regardless of the last-watched channel+volume, takes multiple seconds to change channels, and has no re…

Hotel remotes. You all triple-sanitize them, right? And then burn them....

I don't generally bother. I like to challenge my immune system once in a while to keep it in fighting condition.

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

#318

Post by Multicomp »

dang wrote: post #286
rohan1024 wrote: post #3

After reading this headline I felt like I was having Deja Vu. I wasn't, it was posted 11 hours ago [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21831931 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15643663 (posted two years ago)

I marked this one as a dupe and was about to merge the threads, but the discussion here actually seems to be better than yesterday's. There's clearly a major appetite for this topic, so perhaps we'll break with normal practice and leave this thread up.

I agree. I went to click this link thinking it was the link I saw yesterday that looked intersting but hadn't clicked at the time, now I'm doubly excited to find that there are multiple threads covering the same thing.

Additional: anyone know of a good F# library for the gui.cs framework? Before I manually write bindings I figure I can throw a quick query out there.

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

#319

Post by Piskvorrr »

Uhhrrr wrote: post #226
wolfgke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

Based on my recent interview with a company that does a huge amount of livestreaming, the really smart people at least have a few ideas about this.

Sure. The answer is then, probably, "it's not cost-effective to do that in COTS consumer equipment."

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

#320

Post by cardiffspaceman »

seanalltogether wrote: post #28
wolfgke wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The central reason is that modern video codecs use I-frames and P-frames (sometimes also B-frames; even though as far as I am aware, these are not used for TV broadcasts); see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Video_compression... I-frames are only sent, say, once or twice a second. When a channel is switched, the TV has to wait for the next I-frame, since P-frames (and B-frames) only encode the difference t…

Unless I'm very mistaken about modern digital transmissions, cable coming into the house is still based on a broadcast system, which means you're getting everything all the time. The frames are all there for every channel, they're just not being read. I don't know how much processing or memory it would take to read and store frames for surrounding channels to the one you're on, but I imagine its possible.

Many channels are broadcast, but some are a hybrid. Observe that not everyone needs every channel every second. You can set aside some over-committed bandwidth in an area for the less-in-demand channels and deliver to that area the channels actually desired. This required a change to the CableCard architecture, which has been rolled out for a while now.

Some of the channels I like used to be difficult to tune with my previous cable box, because it would not correctly coordinate tuning with the infrastructure, so I'd have to retune. If I left the box on such a channel and turned it off, the next time I'd use the box the screen would be black.

In the old days all the channels were analog, and used 6MHz each (may vary in your region), and channel changes were much faster.

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