a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by Devac
Devac  ·  1482 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How to Self Quarantine

I'm yet to outgrow the capabilities of Tabletop Simulator or Discord. I mean, if it's good enough to play social bluffing games, it's probably the closest you can get without some costly, time-consuming breakthroughs kb talked about. No comment on work-related teleconferences.





am_Unition  ·  1482 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thank you for me now imagining project meetings with Nightbot in the chat menu. How in the hell could I forget how functional international competitive gaming is?

If lag is so low, (though, depending on how the software handles the data, the official record of player actions and positions is only a one-way transmission to the central server, right?), why in the hell are companies paying for conferencing software like WebEx, with 5x or more latency? Security?? It looks like the market is ripe for disruption. Not VR disruption, simple improvements in teleconferencing software. ~75 users. None of us use our cams. We're VOIP, with low FPS screen sharing, and we're doing > 300 ms one-way delay. There has to be something I'm missing here.

kleinbl00  ·  1481 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    How in the hell could I forget how functional international competitive gaming is?

Right - which needs audio, which needs video, which can generate all of it locally, and which must pass control signals along in 6ms or so. Compare and contrast with the games that actually require assessing the human on the other side, ie poker.

Poker is so broken without human interaction that pokerbots arose within weeks of poker going online and nobody could tell.

    why in the hell are companies paying for conferencing software like WebEx, with 5x or more latency?

"There's only one product, the only thing that changes is how you sell it."

(a legit book I bought on VOiP systems)

So look. I replaced our crusty AT&T Synapse system with a 3CX system. I pay $250 a year and I can do up to 8 simultaneous calls in and out. Which is plenty because we have one phone number. It runs on a Google virtual server which costs us about $2 a month. But I had to take about 10 hours worth of classes to be trained up enough to fumble my way through, and I had to buy the software from someone who had taken about 50 hours of classes to be trained up enough to support me when I break shit.

I coulda bought Vonage or Nextiva or whatever. Rather than $1000 worth of hardware, $5 a month in VOiP fees, $2 a month in server fees and $20 a month in licensing fees, I could be paying Vonage $30 per extension per month. I currently have 17 extensions (for 8 employees! Sweet jesus!) so I'm pretty cheerfully NOT doing that. But if you need a business phone, most people hit the easy button.

Unless you have a spare MCSE sitting around keeping your shit running, in which case that asshole will save you $500 a month. Outfits with a dedicated IT guy? They don't pay Vonage.

People pay for WebEx because it's the easy button. My eight simultaneous calls also allows me to do a 100-seat videoconference. I could literally have my wife's state-level professional organizations dial into our office to run their distance learning events. Skype ain't magic.

But if you don't understand it you're more likely to overpay.

Devac  ·  1482 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're welcome. I can also recommend roll20 if your project meetings requires a lot of procedural dice rolls and initiative tracker. :P

    though, depending on how the software handles the data, the official record of player actions and positions is only a one-way transmission to the central server, right?

I suppose so, but that's probably not the main source of lag. The 'last mile' is often the bottleneck, so just because you have high-bandwidth fibre doesn't mean that the other person's is equally lucky.

    why in the hell are companies paying for conferencing software like WebEx, with 5x or more latency? Security?

Well, if everything else comes from Cisco, maybe it's some package deal? I never used WebEx, but my limited experience with corporate people forced me to conclude that looking professional / UX / foolproof setup is much more important than raw performance. What's the alternative, have everyone at work learn, dunno, OBS or let them choose their own third-party solution?

user-inactivated  ·  1480 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    I can also recommend roll20 if your project meetings requires a lot of procedural dice rolls and initiative tracker

You laugh, but I have rolled dice to generate estimates a few times. Project managers who shrug when you tell them you can't guess how long something will take without knowing exactly what that something is will go find out what the something is when they see you roll for it.

am_Unition  ·  1482 days ago  ·  link  ·  

First of all, congrats on that job, dude! This is what I get for never reading pubski and being too issue-focused. Sorry, I remember hearing about your prep for this, aaaaaaand of course you nailed it. :)

I remember this terrible bootleg, which we used for Halo, it would simply assign one Xbox as "host", and then the worse the host's internet connection, the more advantage they had. Cool, fun times (NSFW, and damn! 13 years ago. checks out with the 2006 tag on the XBconnect git file).

You're right about the default UX needing to be simple, and I'm sure the package deal as well, probably something like calendar software that integrates easily with company e-mail servers. The opposite direction most companies seem to be moving right now, in my experience. Zoom is still OK. Or, no, but it's best, imho. The good ol' cycle of once-decent products ruined by management and market forces demanding software updates.

    procedural dice rolls and initiative tracker

No, but do you have anything to combat induced nausea? I'm working on a video that shows how field lines move through a remarkably small nozzle-like region, where plasma and magnetic flux are allowed to pass between two topologically-distinct magnetic domains. It's like where you'd glue a paper Mobius strip together. Simple-ish. But the surfaces of the magnetic field separatrices, which extend away from there, are very 3D, with a pretty complicated geometry. Some may puke. One sympathizes.

Sorry, we've gotten wayyyyyy off topic, but I just don't know what else there is to do, quarantined here in these threads like this. This post, this is our home now. Yes, yes, we need to also simulate a quarantine on Hubski to... um, to equalize the karmic balance between the reals and the cybers in our minds.

kleinbl00  ·  1481 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Sorry, we've gotten wayyyyyy off topic, but I just don't know what else there is to do, quarantined here in these threads like this.

https://hubski.com/chat

Devac  ·  1482 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks, though, here everyone on this level is considered faculty. It's a bit like being a PhD Candidate by default, but maybe I'm misunderstanding how it works in the USA. Either way, to TL;DR recent pubski, I'm investigating a promising topic, could be one for thesis if my hunch will pan out.

    No, but do you have anything to combat induced nausea?

(Essence of) Ginger has anti-emetic properties, but I doubt that's what you meant. Maybe you can adjust the picture by separating geometric curvature (e.g. represent it as hue of the background) and moving magnetic field? I can give it a look if you want.