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Museum of Failure

museumoffailure.com

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Re: Museum of Failure

#41

Post by BizarroLand »

ghaff wrote: post #27
dorfsmay wrote: post #20

Visited last weekend. Interesting for sure. Funny to see how many times and for how long we've been trying to do VR! Some of the "failures" were unfair IMO, like minitel and Block Buster: It's like saying using wind sails on ships was a failure because it was replaced by steam engines.

In the case of Blockbuster, it's reasonable to argue that they should have at least taken advantage of their brand (and relationships) to get into the DVD rental by mail business which would have, relatively speaking, not been a big stretch. Though phasing out retail would have been disruptive. Of course, streaming was a whole different game. (As would be original content.) And it's not like Netflix is looking especi…

Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix in the early 2000's for $50,000,000.

I bet it spent a while regretting not making that purchase, but then again, if they had Netflix may have become a passing fad and never branched out into the online streaming market.

https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/netflix-blockbuster-meeting...

Re: Museum of Failure

#42

Post by manholio »

wongarsu wrote: post #38
manholio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR is just the most recent incarnation of the "3D vision" gimmick every generation will rediscovered and then abandon. We had multiple waves of this fad, starting with the stereoscopic novelty postcards of the 19th century, the many 3D cinema revivals (the Avatar craze even saw the rise of ludicrous 3D TVs), and now Metaverse and its ilk. It always fails because, once the novelty of the effect wears off, people reali…

Alternatively, we try again and again because there's a lot of promise if we get it right, but so far the technology just isn't there for anything sustainable beyond the novelty factor. This round we got far enough that there are some industry use cases for AR, which shares 99% of its tech with VR. Maybe that will funnel enough money into development to break out of the hype cycle into something sustainable.

I think stereoscopic viewing is fundamentally a bad idea that holds little promise - it's not really 3D, but a parlor trick that gives confusing depth information, the eye must focus at the screen even if the scene is very close or very far. It's too annoying and tiring as a sustainable consumer technology; maybe tools only professionals are required to use, ex. remote surgery gear, with pros and cons well understood.

This could change if holographic digital screens become practical, allowing, for example, multiple people in a room to see a real 3D scene, each from a different angle without any head gear.

Re: Museum of Failure

#43

Post by ghaff »

BizarroLand wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Blockbuster, it's reasonable to argue that they should have at least taken advantage of their brand (and relationships) to get into the DVD rental by mail business which would have, relatively speaking, not been a big stretch. Though phasing out retail would have been disruptive. Of course, streaming was a whole different game. (As would be original content.) And it's not like Netflix is looking especi…

Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix in the early 2000's for $50,000,000. I bet it spent a while regretting not making that purchase, but then again, if they had Netflix may have become a passing fad and never branched out into the online streaming market. https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/netflix-blockbuster-meeting...

I had forgotten that. Yes. I suspect they’d have done the DVD by mail thing but then would have stagnated however many years later.

Re: Museum of Failure

#44

Post by msrenee »

ghaff wrote: post #27
dorfsmay wrote: post #20

Visited last weekend. Interesting for sure. Funny to see how many times and for how long we've been trying to do VR! Some of the "failures" were unfair IMO, like minitel and Block Buster: It's like saying using wind sails on ships was a failure because it was replaced by steam engines.

In the case of Blockbuster, it's reasonable to argue that they should have at least taken advantage of their brand (and relationships) to get into the DVD rental by mail business which would have, relatively speaking, not been a big stretch. Though phasing out retail would have been disruptive. Of course, streaming was a whole different game. (As would be original content.) And it's not like Netflix is looking especi…

I swear Blockbuster tried to do a DVD by mail thing. It just never got popular.

Re: Museum of Failure

#45

Post by BizarroLand »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #39
manholio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR is just the most recent incarnation of the "3D vision" gimmick every generation will rediscovered and then abandon. We had multiple waves of this fad, starting with the stereoscopic novelty postcards of the 19th century, the many 3D cinema revivals (the Avatar craze even saw the rise of ludicrous 3D TVs), and now Metaverse and its ilk. It always fails because, once the novelty of the effect wears off, people reali…

You say "it always fails", but also it fails because "extra 3d information is not worth the logistic cost". Couldn't you conceive of a future where the "logistic cost" drops so incredibly low, that the cost is less than the benefit of the extra information?

For instance, if the soft-AI systems like KoboldAI and StableDiffusion were re-trained to handle the conversion of 2d media into 3d media and guided in the process by an appropriately talented director with a tech team and artists to support it, an entire mediacentric cottage industry could erupt just with managing the licenses to convert old movies into explorable 3d interactive adventures.

How cool would it be to have a chat with Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, or to make a mad dive to save Mufasa at the last second and see how The Lion King would play out without his death as a motivating factor? If you could do all of that and more in a VR Cineplex it would probably be more entertaining than Disneyland and available at every Mall in America.

Honestly, that's probably a trillion+ dollar idea, but implementing it would need an insane amount of money, time, skill, processing, and resources plus dozens of large egotistical companies working together.

Re: Museum of Failure

#46

Post by chmod775 »

thejackgoode wrote: post #16

My favorite place of this sort is Vasa museum in Stockholm It hosts a huge 70m warship that sank in 1628 on her maiden voyage 1.5 km into it. Highly recommended to visit. https://www.vasamuseet.se/en

I have a fond childhood memory of going to a place that looked much like that.

After asking my parents it turns out we went there when I was 6.

Since the memory stuck with me for almost twenty-two years, I can highly recommend it!

Re: Museum of Failure

#47

Post by manholio »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #39
manholio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR is just the most recent incarnation of the "3D vision" gimmick every generation will rediscovered and then abandon. We had multiple waves of this fad, starting with the stereoscopic novelty postcards of the 19th century, the many 3D cinema revivals (the Avatar craze even saw the rise of ludicrous 3D TVs), and now Metaverse and its ilk. It always fails because, once the novelty of the effect wears off, people reali…

You say "it always fails", but also it fails because "extra 3d information is not worth the logistic cost". Couldn't you conceive of a future where the "logistic cost" drops so incredibly low, that the cost is less than the benefit of the extra information?

As I said above, true holographic digital screens could make 3D seamless and ubiquitous. At current computing trends, that appears at least a number of decades away from consumer gear.

Re: Museum of Failure

#49

Post by sublinear »

BizarroLand wrote: post #41
ghaff wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Blockbuster, it's reasonable to argue that they should have at least taken advantage of their brand (and relationships) to get into the DVD rental by mail business which would have, relatively speaking, not been a big stretch. Though phasing out retail would have been disruptive. Of course, streaming was a whole different game. (As would be original content.) And it's not like Netflix is looking especi…

Blockbuster had a chance to buy Netflix in the early 2000's for $50,000,000. I bet it spent a while regretting not making that purchase, but then again, if they had Netflix may have become a passing fad and never branched out into the online streaming market. https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/netflix-blockbuster-meeting...

I think it's highly unlikely Blockbuster was ever going to build and maintain a streaming service if they had purchased Netflix.

Re: Museum of Failure

#50

Post by speed_spread »

wongarsu wrote: post #37
beezlewax wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure wind sails are going to be making a comeback soon.

Traditional sails are very labor intensive, I doubt they will ever make economic sense again. They also take a lot of space that most ships don't have. The two variations that might go somewhere are kites to save maybe 10% of fuel [1], or some variation of rotor sails [2] on tankers or bulk carriers that have the unobstructed deck space. 1: https://future.hamburg/index.php/en/artikel/skysails-marine-... 2: https://en…

It might happen when rich countries start imposing tariffs on cargo ships using bunker fuel. Burning that stuff is utterly terrible but it's cheap so hey.
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