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Museum of Failure

museumoffailure.com

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Re: Museum of Failure

#71

Post by manholio »

ahelwer wrote: post #57
manholio wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>the eye must focus at the screen even if the scene is very close or very far This is just literally untrue. Your eyes focus "into" the VR scene, not at the screens one inch from your eye.

> Your eyes focus "into" the VR scene, not at the screens one inch from your eye.

3D head gear like Oculus have optical systems that move the physical screens virtually to a much greater (and comfortable) distance - most people can't even focus objects closer than about 10 cm.

That's not what I meant. Rather, even that virtual 3D screen is still at a fixed apparent distance from your eyes, unlike a natural scene that contains objects that are father or closer. Such objects scatter light not only at different angles for the two eyes, the bulk of the 3D effect, but also at different internal convergence, requiring the eye's lens to deform and compensate.

This is an effect current tech cannot reproduce, leading to a nauseating and tiring viewing experience - as if the whole immersive virtual world wasn't already.

Re: Museum of Failure

#72

Post by bullen »

dorfsmay wrote: post #21
bullen wrote: post #15

I had an N-Gage, the first phone I talked on in stereo using headphones (obviously). It was probably the best portable device I ever had. Musicplayer, console, stereo phone!!! So much ahead of it's time it even makes a modern "smart" phones look wrong. You could change battery yourself without tools. Real buttons! How many misclicks do we count per day, probably a couple of billion?

When you stereo, do you mean different sounds for each ear? Or just having the same sound on each ear? Wouldn't the former require two microphes?

True, same in both. So mono in both ears.

But it's still a game changer.

Re: Museum of Failure

#73

Post by thunky »

ghaff wrote: post #43
BizarroLand wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It blows my mind that Netflix is still mailing DVDs.

Not only that, but their DVD plan is far better then their streaming plan because it includes decent (not Netflix produced) movies.

Re: Museum of Failure

#74

Post by jhbadger »

manholio wrote: post #28
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.

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…

It just needs its "killer application". I don't know what it is, but consider. Another constantly failing gimmick until recently was the videophone. "Nobody needs to see somebody while talking" was the standard explanation, and every attempt at a videophone failed for decades. But then the pandemic happened and then the remote work craze and virtual meetings became the killer app for that.

Re: Museum of Failure

#75

Post by Vaslo »

I was a chemist in my first career incarnation. I always argued there should be a journal of failed chemistry. There are so many methods that you try and fail and it can take a few days of work to give up. Imagine if there was already a reference to see what was tried and failed. I know there’s a lot more money in what works, but still.

Re: Museum of Failure

#76

Post by yakak »

chiph wrote: post #66
msrenee wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They did, in summer 2007. They priced it for a dollar less than Netflix. They stuck with it almost 6 years, ending it when they left the retail business (except for the one franchise store remaining in Bend, Oregon). https://www.reuters.com/article/industry-blockbuster-dc/bloc...

I think Blockbuster was an anti-brand at that point because of choices they made to navigate having national brick and mortar shops, making an unknown startup more trust worthy.

I'd used them begrudgingly in places that had no independent shops and the various inventory they didn't have were usually rumored to be that their management was christian conservatives, though I think it was more that they avoided a few arbitrary hotspots of potential conservative boycotts that would hurt them in other regions.

I remember that when a friend suggested them, I was quite pleased to be paying $1 more not to help them.

Re: Museum of Failure

#77

Post by beezlewax »

mcculley wrote: post #36
beezlewax wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have been seeing this prediction for a while. What makes you so confident?

I've noticed it's become an area of research again in universities. I'm sure tariffs will be put in place eventually to make shipping "greener". Harvesting wind energy seems ideal to at least reduce emissions.

Re: Museum of Failure

#78

Post by mcculley »

beezlewax wrote: post #77
mcculley wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been seeing this prediction for a while. What makes you so confident?

I've noticed it's become an area of research again in universities. I'm sure tariffs will be put in place eventually to make shipping "greener". Harvesting wind energy seems ideal to at least reduce emissions.

I work in the shipping industry operating tugboats. I have also seen the claims that this will happen. I remain unconvinced. I haven’t seen any infrastructure changes that would indicate adoption anytime soon.

Re: Museum of Failure

#79

Post by inanutshellus »

Nomentatus wrote: post #70
inanutshellus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you nailed it. The hook is "failure is how you succeed" but they show dead end products with perfunctory blurbs and facile presentations. I'd've expected these, yes, but also more substantive "failed 'til I didn't" exhibits such as representations of the hundred+ prototypes that James Dyson purported to have made before finally figuring out the bagless vacuum. Or... photos of Abraham Lincoln and a long, long,…

Pardon my picking nits: He wasn't entirely a failure; he was a very successful railway lawyer. As for his loss to Douglass, that may well have been strategic - a design from the beginning to force Douglas to endorse state sovereignty (not slavery everywhere.) That would get Douglas the senate win, but it was also pretty clear in advance that could split his party, the Democrats, in two. It did. That may have been a b…

Thanks for the feedback.

Now we're entirely off-topic, but it's a six-day-old thread so I doubt it'll bother anyone. I hadn't heard about the idea of him intentionally losing. Reminds me of the famous quote about New Coke: "We aren't that smart, and we aren't that stupid." Contextually meaning - I wonder how intentionally he ran for an office, worked to become the party nominee, then somehow was able to intentionally not sway voters his way for that election but then... get picked as the nominee later so they could actually try to win.

Just speaking from intuition rather than knowledge, seems more like a "glass half full" kind of strategy. Either he wins, or he loses but his rival weakens the opposing party, opening up future opportunities.

Further, the "successful lawyer" thing doesn't detract from the issue. Again, it's about reaching further than one has already. Striving, struggling, faltering, finding purchase, gaining a foothold, and succeeding. The context of Lincoln not being financially dependent on the appointment is, contextually, irrelevant. It's just that person's baseline.

A similar (fictional) story could be "I was a successful school teacher but I took the bar 17 times and became a lawyer! I then went on to the supreme court and also went on to fund research on dyslexia and change the lives of thousands because of it."

Certainly being a school teacher is itself already success, and if they'd given up on the Bar exam that wouldn't mean falling back on academics mean there was no failure.

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