This Video Has X Views • Hacker News Board

Re: This Video Has X Views

#51

Post by amatecha » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #29

djhworld wrote: post #11

I really liked this video, it highlights that a lot of software we write is ephemeral and will one day either be retired or stop working. The frequently updating title thing is cute, it'll be interesting to see what dies first - YouTube pulling the "title update API" or Tom's script running wherever he's put it

I can go find NES games and Gameboy games in my parents basement. If the NES worked I could play it or find a knock off on Amazon. Pretty sure I have a Doom floppy. Kids these days will be lucky to remember their favorite mobile games. Let alone be able to play them. Will they ever have an iOS or Android equivalent of ROMs?

I have a huge folder of iOS apps, but.. unfortunately in I think iOS 9 or so, Apple made it so backing up your iPhone stopped backing up the applications, and I believe made it impossible to install applications from your hard drive backups (that may have happened in a later iOS version - I forget). Meaning... iOS apps are now simply unrecoverable once they aren't on App Store anymore. Good thing I have a couple old iPhones which actually allow installing these old backed up applications. Even then, the entire ecosystem is completely reliant on internet authentication to even install the OS, so if your phone needs to be restored -- good luck. Very sad times, indeed.

Yeah the personal effect of this for me is, I can't show people the song I had in Tap Tap Revenge anymore. I do have an old iPhone that still has it installed, but it's not like I carry that around with me. The app is no longer on App Store and I thus could never install it on my newer iPhone, nor restore my backed up copy to it (and even if I could restore it, it wouldn't run anyways because of the breaking of backwards compatibility in recent iOS updates). Overall, a whole ton of user-hostile product choices in the iOS ecosystem, sadly. Not the Apple I grew up with, where I could modify anything to my heart's content (ResEdit, anyone?)...

Re: This Video Has X Views

#52

Post by kube-system » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #5

If it's actually spot on, it's a miracle. I got the counter and the title both showing 3,690,744 when I first opened the link - so how unlikely is this actually? Probably not really too unlikely. Or I got really lucky. EDIT: Thinking about it, as YouTube probably updates the view count only every couple of seconds or minutes it might actually be spot on most of the time if the title gets updated at about the same fre…

YouTube's view counts update at a notoriously slow rate. It's not hard to find new videos with more likes/dislikes than views.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#53

Post by slg » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #29

djhworld wrote: post #11

I really liked this video, it highlights that a lot of software we write is ephemeral and will one day either be retired or stop working. The frequently updating title thing is cute, it'll be interesting to see what dies first - YouTube pulling the "title update API" or Tom's script running wherever he's put it

I can go find NES games and Gameboy games in my parents basement. If the NES worked I could play it or find a knock off on Amazon. Pretty sure I have a Doom floppy. Kids these days will be lucky to remember their favorite mobile games. Let alone be able to play them. Will they ever have an iOS or Android equivalent of ROMs?

Some of those NES and Gameboy games might not work as originally intended. Lots of them had internal batteries in order to save information and those batteries are starting to die. Floppies from that era and early CDs are also at the age in which they are likely to degrade. So while some of this old tech might have a longer shelf life than tech today, as the video says, entropy will get us all in the end.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#54

Post by jshevek » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

dheera wrote: post #12

dheera wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah unfortunately Youtube doesn't let you edit videos, which sucks for creators who want to fix minor mistakes after a video has gone viral. You can, however, add and edit "cards" on top of the video. On another note, it would be noteworthy if the title on Hacker News also included the counter.

Uh, why the downvote? Can HN institute a policy that a reply is required if you downvote?

It is fortunate, not unfortunate, that YouTube prevents editing of the video itself after a video has been uploaded, viewed, interacted with, shared, commented on, and started to accumulate karma of various sorts.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#55

Post by atomwaffel » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #50

The voice, oratorical flourishes, and narrative style really remind me of James Burke's Connections. "And that's why I chose to film this here..." Delightful!

You’ll enjoy the rest of his videos then. He’s one of the few Youtubers whose videos I watch regularly. In addition to being interesting, I always find them well-researched, well-produced and exactly as long as they need to be without any fluff or clickbait.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#56

Post by dheera » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

NoodleIncident wrote: post #31

dheera wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah unfortunately Youtube doesn't let you edit videos, which sucks for creators who want to fix minor mistakes after a video has gone viral. You can, however, add and edit "cards" on top of the video. On another note, it would be noteworthy if the title on Hacker News also included the counter.

If such a feature existed, it would be used for abuse 99% of the time

Vimeo does have such a feature. The ability to do such could be based on karma on YouTube.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#57

Post by jinushaun » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

stickfigure wrote: post #50

The voice, oratorical flourishes, and narrative style really remind me of James Burke's Connections. "And that's why I chose to film this here..." Delightful!

You should watch his other videos. He often comes up as recommended for me. I think it's the accent and the cadence of his speech that is so appealing.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#58

Post by function_seven » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

wil421 wrote: post #29

djhworld wrote: post #11

I really liked this video, it highlights that a lot of software we write is ephemeral and will one day either be retired or stop working. The frequently updating title thing is cute, it'll be interesting to see what dies first - YouTube pulling the "title update API" or Tom's script running wherever he's put it

I can go find NES games and Gameboy games in my parents basement. If the NES worked I could play it or find a knock off on Amazon. Pretty sure I have a Doom floppy. Kids these days will be lucky to remember their favorite mobile games. Let alone be able to play them. Will they ever have an iOS or Android equivalent of ROMs?

> Kids these days will be lucky to remember their favorite mobile games. Let alone be able to play them.

I'm already feeling the pain of this. There was a game for iOS called GeoDefense (and a sister game, GeoDefense Swarm). To this day these were my favorite games on the phone. But iOS 10 ended support for one of them, then a later OS update bricked the other one.

The developer hasn't updated these games to work in new iOS, so they're lost to time.

If I had a time machine, I would go back and warn past-Me to reserve a 4S for just playing these games.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#59

Post by ggambetta » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

dom96 wrote: post #4

ggambetta wrote: post #2

This would be noteworthy if the counter was included in the video (like the similar video that shows its own URL [0]). But as it is, it's just the title that changes to match the number of views, so... not much to see here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20452013

> This would be noteworthy if the counter was included in the video Pretty sure that would be impossible, unless I am missing something.

I agree, but when someone does something we consider to be impossible, that's interesting and noteworthy. This, not so much.

Re: This Video Has X Views

#60

Post by ggambetta » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

danpalmer wrote: post #3

ggambetta wrote: post #2

This would be noteworthy if the counter was included in the video (like the similar video that shows its own URL [0]). But as it is, it's just the title that changes to match the number of views, so... not much to see here. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20452013

You seem to have missed that this is a science-communication video aimed to help lay-people understand APIs, standards, online abuse, privacy issues, and how automation is playing into the issues we have in society stemming from social media.

I don't think that changes the fact that the gimmick, that gives the name to the video and the submission in HN, is pretty unimpressive.