The Official Status Thread

Right now the only one that even slightly has a chance is Playstation VR, because Sony has big pockets. I bet $50 that in a year or two we'll see a "Sony to stop making Playstation VR headsets", just like this month's "Microsoft to stop making Kinect" articles.

Steam seems to have gone nuts over the HTC Vive, which is better than the Oculus (for one thing, it exists and can be purchased), but I don't think Steam's actually bankrolling HTC as much as using it just as their reference implementation.

The problem with VR is there's always a core set of people who get really excited about it (although I can't imagine why), then there's a much larger set of people who follow fads, then there's the general public. It's never broken through to the general public. Although the recent attempt has probably done better than all previous attempts in reaching fad-followers. See also: 3D television. (Although at least 3D televisions also work as normal televisions; those headsets are just expensive single-use junk.)

It works as a mall attraction. Remake that Virtuality game from every goddamned mall in the US in the mid-1990s, where you shoot pterodactyls with your dumb blue and red plastic guns. Remember that thing?

ScholRLEA

@timebandit "I'll have a choux with cream on it, force it down my throat, and I want massage your grandmother."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOJDNChwgBw

Filed Under: Remember when Steve Martin did comedy records? Remember Steve Martin? Remember comedy records? Remember records?

TimeBandit

@scholrlea said in The Official Status Thread:

I want massage your grandmother

You'll need a shovel

Magus

@blakeyrat I think the fact that Microsoft now has a pretty good platform for it built and gaining features may help. It's already capable of enabling employers to put employees in small boxes and tell them they're larger because they can have a massive VR office. Luckily no companies seem to be doing that, yet.

Maciejasjmj

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

It's already capable of enabling employers to put employees in small boxes and tell them they're larger because they can have a massive VR office.

I'm pretty sure you could do that before given enough psychedelic drugs, but it didn't seem to catch on.

blakeyrat

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

@blakeyrat I think the fact that Microsoft now has a pretty good platform for it built and gaining features may help.

Maybe but what is it for?

I mean, they're using the same "auto mechanics can look up the docs while hands-free repairing a car" example that Google Glass did. And while there's certainly a market for that (although not with automobiles-- more like jetliners), it's not a very large market, and it's not something you need to roll-out to every customer. Like Google Glass tried.

Yeah you can use it to virtually lay out Ikea furniture, but a dirt-cheap Android phone does that just as well for the once every 5 years you actually need to do that.

I guess I'm not sufficiently convinced that Microsoft learned the lessons of Google Glass, which is more similar to the product they're actually making than the HTC Vive/Oculus/Playstation VR/whatever VR helmets.

Magus

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

I mean, they're using the same "auto mechanics can look up the docs while hands-free repairing a car" example that Google Glass did. And while there's certainly a market for that (although not with automobiles-- more like jetliners), it's not a very large market, and it's not something you need to roll-out to every customer. Like Google Glass tried.

They're having luck with that for car designers and elevator maintenence companies mostly, with Hololens, though that's understandably limited. The hardware costs don't help.

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

Yeah you can use it to virtually lay out Ikea furniture, but a dirt-cheap Android phone does that just as well for the once every 5 years you actually need to do that.

And apps. Which makes it useful.

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

I guess I'm not sufficiently convinced that Microsoft learned the lessons of Google Glass, which is more similar to the product they're actually making than the HTC Vive/Oculus/Playstation VR/whatever VR helmets.

Last year, sure. But now HoloLens isn't the only thing they have. They have VR goggles as well, and a platform for using them, which is essentially a virtual house. And yeah, sure, furnature can be placed in it. But you can also launch apps, or run full immersive experiences.

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

Maybe but what is it for?

Ultimately, it's for the same thing any computer interface is for: an attempt to make computers easier to interact with. A virtual environment is much more immediately accessible than even a phone, and is available really cheap now.

What Google did with glass was allow you to have text or small widgets in the corner of your vision. What Microsoft lets you do is insert objects into a space and interact with them, whether the space is virtual or the world around you. And they're building it as a platform anyone can make hardware for.

Because ultimately, being able to go full Star Trek and query your computer for details on something on the go, without having to put much thought into how you do it is a huge jump in usability. Similarly, being able to just gesture to bring up a menu, point at what you want, and have it figure it all out is huge.

They showed a demo recently where one of the Microsoft execs was using voice and gaze exclusively to manipulate an app in the VR version of their environment: "Move that" - looks at an app - "there" - as he looks elsewhere - was enough to do the task at hand.

And ultimately that's the point of everything we're doing. We want tasks to be easy, we want users to not have to learn everything to be able to use a piece of software. While the headsets are still too large and bulky, the software side is now in a good place to grow - the hardware can now grow at it's own pace, and be competed over.

We're in a good place now for it to finally take off.

Maciejasjmj

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

We're in a good place now for it to finally take off.

I'd argue having Microsoft on the job is the worst place we could be in for anything to take off. They have a knack for taking amazingly engineered solutions and ensuring they never get a market share.

Magus

@maciejasjmj That's the thing though: It's here. It's good. You can just go out, buy a headset, plug it into your PC, and it just works. All the latest integrated gpus are sufficient to run it.

And it's easy to make software for it too, already. Any app that's in the store just works. I was playing Cuphead on it a week or two ago, with no issues. With no motion controllers, I haven't tried any of the immersive apps, but it's a really good starting point.

JazzyJosh

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

Remake that Virtuality game from every goddamned mall in the US in the mid-1990s, where you shoot pterodactyls with your dumb blue and red plastic guns. Remember that thing?

No :/

TimeBandit

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

A virtual environment is much more immediately accessible than even a phone

Do you mean you don't carry your phone with you but you bring your HoloLens+laptop everywhere ???

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

Because ultimately, being able to go full Star Trek and query your computer for details on something on the go, without having to put much thought into how you do it is a huge jump in usability.

Google Assistant, your own personal Google

Meet your Google Assistant. Ask it questions. Tell it to do things. It's your own personal Google, always ready to help whenever you need it.

Tsaukpaetra

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

The problem with VR is

It's historically been relegated to

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

a mall attraction

Yes.

Until the general public and make use of, it's always going to be like that. There's plenty of 5-minute "experiences" on the VR stores right now. That's not interesting, really. Until we have something that's continually engaging (i.e. high replay value), it's going to be a hard sell.

blakeyrat

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

A virtual environment is much more immediately accessible than even a phone, and is available really cheap now.

Is it? I don't have to put on a bulky helmet and strap it down to use my phone.

Magus

@timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

Do you mean you don't carry your phone with you but you bring your HoloLens+laptop everywhere

Hololens is standalone. The VR ones are not, currently. Maybe you should do research?

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

Is it? I don't have to put on a bulky helmet and strap it down to use my phone.

A hardware issue that will be gradually improved on and eventually resolved in some way I will find acceptable, I'm sure. The software is ready, though.

TimeBandit

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

Maybe you should do research?

That sounds like work™

Dreikin

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

@dreikin I like your minimalist rearview mirror.

@tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

@dreikin I like your minimalist rearview mirror.

 what I can't see can't catch me... 

@timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

@blakeyrat said in The Official Status Thread:

@dreikin I like your minimalist rearview mirror.

Where we are going we don't need ~~roads~~ rearview mirrors

It's a pickup converted into a (formerly U-Haul branded) box truck. A proper rearview mirror would be as useful as a security camera facing its own wall mount. I assume the mounting stub is just a leftover from making the pickup portion of it before conversion.

Tsaukpaetra

@dreikin said in The Official Status Thread:

I assume the mounting stub is just a leftover from making the pickup portion of it before conversion.

I believe most windshields have the stub patch so the installer doesn't have to figure out where the middle is (as totally difficult as it is), and to provide a better surface for the glue to stick to?

TimeBandit

@tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

to provide a better surface for the glue to stick to?

The stub is glued to the glass

Rhywden

@anotherusername said in The Official Status Thread:

@heterodox I did a version of that one, too.

I think I'll set some of my school's Surfaces to that one and then harass a random pupil when he begins to use it :)

Tsaukpaetra

@timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

@tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

to provide a better surface for the glue to stick to?

The stub is glued to the glass

Huh. Opening the image and Zoom! Enhance! ing in, I see it now.

Still...

Tsaukpaetra

@rhywden said in The Official Status Thread:

@anotherusername said in The Official Status Thread:

@heterodox I did a version of that one, too.

I think I'll set some of my school's Surfaces to that one and then harass a random pupil when he begins to use it :)

A good trick, sir.

Magus

@rhywden Should get @anotherusername to make one of the W10 background first, probably.

dcon

@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:

“with extra butter”

From the other thread, the French are having problems with that one... Global economies etc.
: Hey $country will pay more!!
: Where's my butter!!!

anotherusername

@rhywden said in The Official Status Thread:

@anotherusername said in The Official Status Thread:

@heterodox I did a version of that one, too.

I think I'll set some of my school's Surfaces to that one and then harass a random pupil when he begins to use it :)

Do, and report back.

@magus said in The Official Status Thread:

@rhywden Should get @anotherusername to make one of the W10 background first, probably.

I could accommodate... I saved a separate copy of the overlay layer.

Rhywden

Status: It's amazing what a difference a proper slicing tool can make when 3D printing. The included "Slic3r" program did its job but some of the options were rather arcane, the included version was from 2015 and the next major release is still labelled with an "RC" code. Also, the current RC release has a habit of adding curves where there shouldn't be some. Also, when I tried the "support structure" feature I couldn't get the supports off the print for the life of me.

Then I stumbled over Simplify3D.
It has:
a) Presets for pretty much any printer out there
b) an included tool for calibration (both manual and automatic. The latter only works, of course, with the proper sensors).
c) Included tools to repair faulty 3D models (of the non-manifold variety).
d) intelligent presets to get rid of the gunk under the extruder at the beginning
e) and most importantly, a support section with pictures you can compare your results to which then can tell you what you have to do differently.

All in all, money well spent.

Greybeard

@timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

@anotherusername said in The Official Status Thread:

Apparently it's French for "cream puff"?

Yes. Also called "choux à la crème"

They are not the same thing. A cream puff is filled with pastry cream or, if the baker is lazy, whipped cream. A profiterole is filled with ice cream.

Barbarians.

pie_flavor

Status:
https://i.imgur.com/xQDDMBq.jpg
Better than last time, but still moderately salty.

ben_lubar

@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

Status:
https://i.imgur.com/xQDDMBq.jpg
Better than last time, but still moderately salty.

I haven't even attempted any PvP matches in GW2 for the last 2+ seasons.

pie_flavor

Holy Jesus, that win-streak. That must have been, what, twelve games in a row?

Atazhaia

STATUS: Skipped the planned planning to do a field trip to the airport instead. Visited the Remote Traffic Control, where the world first remote control of an airport was installed, moving the air traffic control from being on-site at the airport in Örnsköldsvik (160km away) to a building at the airport in Sundsvall instead.

14 HD cameras giving a 360 degree view over the airport, and some additional support cameras (including one with a brutal zoom to see details up close). Many racks of server and network equipment to control it all, as every camera needs 2 servers and also redundancy in case one breaks. So much cool tech to salivate over~

Also visited the workshop for the telecommunications guys. Got to see some other items, like the new emergency phone system they are rolling out. Also found an old map which I wanted to steal as it is relevant to my interests, did not dare to even take a photo however. All in all, very cool visit!

LFV - Luftfartsverket

anotherusername

@greybeard said in The Official Status Thread:

@timebandit said in The Official Status Thread:

@anotherusername said in The Official Status Thread:

Apparently it's French for "cream puff"?

Yes. Also called "choux à la crème"

They are not the same thing. A cream puff is filled with pastry cream or, if the baker is lazy, whipped cream. A profiterole is filled with ice cream.

Barbarians.

Pff. Like they needed another word for "puff à la mode".

heterodox

Sigh. Just got a list of forty findings against my servers for Apache Struts vulnerabilities. At a glance I can tell they're all false positives (It appears I'm on a newer patch level than the vulnerability scanner even knows about, this happens about once a year) but of course I'm going to have to go through every server and laboriously verify both for my own peace of mind and for SOP. Well, that's going to be my whole day.

Cursorkeys

Status: Android Studio has just broken for no reason...again.

Now it just churns out "Unable to save plugin settings" constantly. Looking at the solutions online the options were: ~~Run AS as Administrator~~, ~~try a new project~~, ~~fiddle with permissions on the AS directory~~. And now we're on a clean re-install of Android Studio. This is ridiculous.

dkf

@cursorkeys said in The Official Status Thread:

Android Studio has just broken for no reason...again.

Oh, you're running it on Windows?

Cursorkeys

@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:

@cursorkeys said in The Official Status Thread:

Android Studio has just broken for no reason...again.

Oh, you're running it on Windows?

Unfortunately yes. A clean-install has also not improved matters. Bugger.

Edit: removing the .android folders under the user profile has also not helped. This is fun. I have a presentation on this App tomorrow and I have stuff to do

JazzyJosh

@pie_flavor said in The Official Status Thread:

Holy Jesus, that win-streak. That must have been, what, twelve games in a row?

I won my first 7.07 match.

Turns out a full split push team isn't necessarily a good idea.

dkf

@cursorkeys More seriously, I'm guessing it needs to be installed somewhere where the actual person using it can write to without special permissions. Because raisins.

0_1509546096183_953d7e12-c477-4720-8966-b6165edcf33c-image.png

It's crappy that it wants to store information in a shared space rather than a user-specific one, but that's what you've got.

Cursorkeys

@dkf said in The Official Status Thread:

@cursorkeys More seriously, I'm guessing it needs to be installed somewhere where the actual person using it can write to without special permissions. Because raisins.

It's crappy that it wants to store information in a shared space rather than a user-specific one, but that's what you've got.

The annoying thing is it has been working fine and was working fine this morning. I changed physical devices from our test Android 5 tablet to my personal Android 6 device and then back. After I changed back to the Android 5 device it broke.

As far as I can tell it isn't even a permissions issue. Sysinternals ProcMon doesn't show any denied writes when it claims it can't save. I think the error handling is a bit crap and reporting something else as 'failure to save'.

Edit: theres_yer_problem.jpg


"AWT-EventQueue-0 3.0#AI-171.4408382 Studio, eap:false, os:Windows 10 10.0, java-version:JetBrains s.r.o 1.8.0_152-release-915-b01" prio=0 tid=0x0 nid=0x0 runnable
     java.lang.Thread.State: RUNNABLE
 (in native)
	at java.util.zip.ZipFile.read(Native Method)
	at java.util.zip.ZipFile.access$1400(ZipFile.java:60)
	at java.util.zip.ZipFile$ZipFileInputStream.read(ZipFile.java:717)
	at java.util.zip.ZipFile$ZipFileInflaterInputStream.fill(ZipFile.java:419)
	at java.util.zip.InflaterInputStream.read(InflaterInputStream.java:158)
	at com.intellij.openapi.util.io.FileUtilRt.loadBytes(FileUtilRt.java:657)
	at com.intellij.openapi.util.io.FileUtil.loadBytes(FileUtil.java:1635)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.MemoryResource.load(MemoryResource.java:74)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.JarLoader.getResource(JarLoader.java:138)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.ClassPath$ResourceStringLoaderIterator.process(ClassPath.java:342)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.ClassPath$ResourceStringLoaderIterator.process(ClassPath.java:332)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.ClasspathCache.iterateLoaders(ClasspathCache.java:98)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.ClassPath.getResource(ClassPath.java:110)
	at com.intellij.util.lang.UrlClassLoader._findClass(UrlClassLoader.java:243)
	at com.intellij.ide.plugins.cl.PluginClassLoader.loadClassInsideSelf(PluginClassLoader.java:125)
	at com.intellij.ide.plugins.cl.PluginClassLoader.tryLoadingClass(PluginClassLoader.java:74)
	at com.intellij.ide.plugins.cl.PluginClassLoader.loadClass(PluginClassLoader.java:63)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.handlers.ViewHandlerManager.createHandler(ViewHandlerManager.java:348)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.handlers.ViewHandlerManager.getHandler(ViewHandlerManager.java:175)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.handlers.ViewHandlerManager.getHandlerOrDefault(ViewHandlerManager.java:149)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette$Item.initHandler(Palette.java:413)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette$Item.access$100(Palette.java:210)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette.lambda$parse$1(Palette.java:67)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette$$Lambda$1711/2026409207.visit(Unknown Source)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette$Item.accept(Palette.java:387)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette$Group.accept(Palette.java:198)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette.accept(Palette.java:106)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.Palette.parse(Palette.java:67)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.NlPaletteModel.loadPalette(NlPaletteModel.java:186)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.NlPaletteModel.loadPalette(NlPaletteModel.java:138)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.NlPaletteModel.getPalette(NlPaletteModel.java:117)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.NlPalettePanel.reloadPalette(NlPalettePanel.java:151)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.NlPalettePanel.setToolContext(NlPalettePanel.java:146)
	at com.android.tools.idea.uibuilder.palette.NlPalettePanel.setToolContext(NlPalettePanel.java:50)
	at com.android.tools.adtui.workbench.AttachedToolWindow.updateContent(AttachedToolWindow.java:286)
	at com.android.tools.adtui.workbench.AttachedToolWindow.<init>(AttachedToolWindow.java:105)
	at com.android.tools.adtui.workbench.WorkBench.addToolsToModel(WorkBench.java:422)
	at com.android.tools.adtui.workbench.WorkBench.init(WorkBench.java:117)
	at com.android.tools.idea.common.editor.NlEditorPanel.initNeleModelOnEventDispatchThread(NlEditorPanel.java:121)
	at com.android.tools.idea.common.editor.NlEditorPanel$$Lambda$1487/1188225248.run(Unknown Source)
	at com.intellij.openapi.project.DumbServiceImpl.lambda$smartInvokeLater$7(DumbServiceImpl.java:381)
	at com.intellij.openapi.project.DumbServiceImpl$$Lambda$1488/2036045210.run(Unknown Source)
	at com.intellij.openapi.application.TransactionGuardImpl$2.run(TransactionGuardImpl.java:303)
	at com.intellij.openapi.application.impl.LaterInvocator$FlushQueue.runNextEvent(LaterInvocator.java:410)
	at com.intellij.openapi.application.impl.LaterInvocator$FlushQueue.run(LaterInvocator.java:399)
	at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(InvocationEvent.java:311)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEventImpl(EventQueue.java:762)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.access$500(EventQueue.java:98)
	at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:715)
	at java.awt.EventQueue$3.run(EventQueue.java:709)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl.doIntersectionPrivilege(ProtectionDomain.java:80)
	at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:732)
	at com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue.defaultDispatchEvent(IdeEventQueue.java:827)
	at com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue._dispatchEvent(IdeEventQueue.java:655)
	at com.intellij.ide.IdeEventQueue.dispatchEvent(IdeEventQueue.java:365)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThread.java:201)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.java:116)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThread.java:105)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:101)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:93)
	at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:82)

.
So something, something module loader?

TwelveBaud

@cursorkeys Looks like it's trying to load something from a ZIP (or JAR, or WAR, or EAR, or APK, or...) file to add to the tool palette, but the ZIP file is (present but) corrupt.

Magus

@pie_flavor Now make use of that positive energy! It's Cuphead time!

Tsaukpaetra

status: started playing Talos Principle. Things I currently believe:

I'm playing as a newly spawned AI.
Elohim is damaged.
This is easier than Portal.
I'm making great use of the Lateral Thinking Engine.

accalia

@tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

This is easier than Portal.

you will learn that this is not the case..... at least if you go for all the optional objectives..... some of them are........ tough.

anonymous234

Ha ha :(

Tsaukpaetra

@accalia said in The Official Status Thread:

@tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:

This is easier than Portal.

you will learn that this is not the case..... at least if you go for all the optional objectives..... some of them are........ tough.

Yes. I'm still pondering on where I get keys to open the door on A1-H. Does the map change? I might need to sketch the layout...

Tsaukpaetra

@anonymous234 said in The Official Status Thread:

Ha ha :(

Head of IT for... I forget. I set up the mail system and a shared network drive.
Hometown.
Unknown.
Owned vs "was let drive by parents"? That would be my '96 Nissan Sentra. Got 33 proud MPG, something none of my vehicles since have come even close to reproducing.