Rick's b.log - entry 2022/09/04

Planes, but...

Speaking of which:

Artefacts

That awkward moment when you spot
compression artefacts in reality...

Aspergers

I added it to the b.log entry with the other tests, it seemed logical to keep it all together. Also added some photos (me shopping!) and expanded various things.

What the hell, Google?

But, what's with Google these days? The top <many> results are increasingly becoming polluted with videos.

After a bunch of scrolling, I finally found a site that said:

• The smell like melon
• The skin has turned yellow/tan with distinctive marks
• The stem where it connects to the plant has withered

That does not need me to watch through a seven minute video. Maybe a JPEG of a ready-to-pick melon, so I can compare with my own.
It seems to me, more and more, that Google are trying to push videos for all sorts of things. Which, I guess, is useful if you have the time and inclination to watch. Though, I'd rather imagine the pre-roll advertising (remember who owns YouTube) is a larger factor in this decision.

Mine is getting there, but not quite. Kind of missed being ready for my holiday by a Cornish Mile, but given the blazing heat...

My melon.

Camera zoom

Okay, then. This is 1× (or wide).

1× zoom (or wide).

This is zooming in to 12×, which on my camera is the maximum optical zoom.

12× zoom.

And this is zooming in to 64×, which on my camera is the maximum optical zoom plus the maximum digital zoom.
As any zoom beyond the optical range is essentially faking it (the image sensor isn't ever seeing anything other than the above 12× image), you'll notice artefacts and some blurriness. This wouldn't happen in a true 64× zoom.

64× zoom.

And this is an annotated picture. The orange square demonstrates 12×, which the green square demonstrates 64×

Zoom definitions: Orange 12×, green 64×.

Vide grenier?

Weeding.

Your comments:

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David Pilling, 4th September 2022, 18:36

I used to hate videos - you know the answer can be given in one sentence, instead you end up watching a 10 minute video on You Tube, and often they're fraudulent and don't actually give the answer.  Writing is more efficient than talking.  Trouble is you get used to watching video. I do not accept video as an answer for programming problems though.  It is part of the general drift of things getting worse. Soon there will only be video and making progress will be slower.  Bit like in Victorian times they could all do long multiplication in their heads, and whilst they're saying "678 x 896, that'd be 987652 sir", you're trying to get your phone to boot.

J.G.Harston, 4th September 2022, 18:41

My current job is on a service desk, and my typical answer to queries is along the lines of:  Send new user welcome email: Service ticket -> Conversations -> Reply -> Template: IT (North) New Starter (E1 or E3)  But, no, no no no, no. I have to send them a screenshot of each step.

J.G.Harston, 4th September 2022, 18:44

The thing where video is useful is where the actions over time are important. I plastered a wall this afternoon (by Toutatis, I ache!), and before I started I watched a video to get a feeling for the sweep, swish, sweep, swish, etc.

Rick , 4th September 2022, 19:25

Video is useful for demonstrating things, as your example.  But as David's example, it is also horrible for some things. I've watched a programming video and, okay it was well explained, but they took a page of content and padded it out to be ten minutes *and* how exactly do you cut and paste from a video?

Rick , 4th September 2022, 19:32

The screenshot of each step reminded me - I was looking at how I'd buy stocks with my bank. It said the information wasn't available in the app, I'd need to log into the bank's website then go here and do this.    Yeah, okay, and was this perhaps written before the site was redesigned a couple of years ago and everything changed?    It also failed at some really basic things like "consult our standard tariffs to know the price of doing this". You or I have functioning brains, so those words would link to the place where you can download the tariff file (but not directly to it, so it can be updated), right?  The bank just offered text. You had to wander off, discover there's no obvious reference to such, so you need to search and get given two different results that provide two different documents. I've not looked to see if the costs are the same, but they are apparently both current.    So, yeah, a set of screenshots might help the user wade through the morass.

Rob, 4th September 2022, 19:54

I hate video results... just give me a goddam webpage with text and, if necessary, illustrative pictures. I don't want to sit through three minutes of ads and five of video to find they're talking about the wrong model of widget, so I need to start all over again...

Rick, 4th September 2022, 20:06

⬆️ This.

Gavin Wraith, 4th September 2022, 21:26

> just give me a goddam webpage with text  Just give me a goddam acyclic website. How many websites send you round in circles when you are looking for something, say how to contact a human being in the organization. Checking for the existence of cycles in a website is fairly straightforward programmatically - it would be a useful addon for any browser: WARNING this website can send you round in circles!

Rick , 4th September 2022, 22:57

You don't need a browser extension, it's really easy.  If the company you are dealing with is an online company and has no (or very very few) actual real presence, then you'll be going in circles trying to speak to an actual human who is in a position to do something.    Google? I wrote about the problems that I had when I noticed that Navigation was sending people down an off ramp and on a U turn into incoming traffic. A *volunteer* had to deconstruct and recreate the road piece by piece, awaiting approval by some opaque process.    eBay? From what I've read, their resolution service is like rolling dice.    Amazon? You can get to talk to somebody if you jump through enough hoops.    Usually the way to get attention these days is to complain loudly on the Twitter account of the company in question. It's a ridiculous state of affairs, isn't it?

David Pilling, 5th September 2022, 12:18

But do they compare to the telephone menu systems with black holes on the leaves. Presumably one should construct a map and not go down the same route twice.

Rick, 5th September 2022, 14:17

With telephone systems, sometimes they are designed such that whatever path you take, you end up at the same place.  In those cases, it can be useful to try options not in the menu (like 0 or #).

Rick, 5th September 2022, 14:22

Mom was one of those people who could calculate complicated things in her head faster than I could enter them into a calculator.  Forget waiting for the phone to boot, with it in my hand, on, and in calculator mode, she'd still beat me.    Sadly, that wasn't something I inherited. Numbers, to me, are mostly meaningless squiggles whose interpretation changes from one moment to the next (whereas the letter 'a' is always the letter 'a' even if there are a half dozen ways of saying it).

Mick, 6th September 2022, 15:51

There should be an option to select video results for those who are illiterate. Only time I've found video helpful is disassembly of things I couldn't work out myself such as an ipod classic.     Ads in youtube I don't usually notice as pihole takes care of most of them. however I watched a lecture on my mobile Saturday. It was 45 minutes long. As time went on the interval for ads appearing shortened, the time to skip increased. Rancid!

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