Even if it wasn't generated by AI, it reads like an advertisement for some company which sure sounds like a wrapper on top of a LLM. I think the moat for that type of company is a lot less defensible than any of the Vertically Integrated category leaders by a country mile.
This is so cool, I’m glad the company allowed the author to release this to the public. People like myself with knowledge of some of the art and technology involved but that stand outside the industry can get a little bit of a sense how the SOTA of animation evolves.
Secondly the bit about the evolution catching the unnamed studio, likely Pixar in production capability as of the first Zootopia certainly shows up on screen.
Yeah, I often cite Big Hero 6 (from 2014) as the place where as an animation fan I felt Hyperion (Disney's renderer) very visibly in the end product out-paced Renderman (Pixar's more mature renderer). Big Hero 6's wide shots get truly wide and the scale of its San Fransokyo is almost palpable in many sequences, showing off especially Hyperion's focus on being able to do dynamic crowd work and large crowd scenes and plenty of architecture surrounding that. (Zootopia in 2016 further cemented that Hyperion was great at crowd work.) It was one of my complaints with Pixar's Soul in 2020 that its New Orleans felt almost claustrophobic and isolated, no truly wide establishing shots, no real crowds to speak of, mostly just shots of one or two characters in close up on city streets that in the real world New Orleans would be bustling and busy. Real New Orleans has a different kind of claustrophia from big crowds and never feels isolating or as lonely. Some of that may have been the intended vibe for that particular movie, but some of that seems technical at this point from the different focuses Hyperion and Renderman have been given and how much I think Hyperion shows technical improvement and mastery of somethings that Renderman cannot seem to do.
It somewhat suggests that Disney is correct in having the two studios compete in renderers rather than share one (even as they unify other parts of the process, such as this article mentions moving to Pixar's Presto tool as one of the things that happened in Zootopia 2's production).
When I first started at Disney Animation, at one point I asked Ed Catmull what the rationale was for staffing two separate rendering teams, and he had an interesting answer. His answer was that it turns out that even when Disney Animation was using RenderMan, the high end needs of the studio still required enough rendering developers/TDs that in terms of cost it was essentially no different than staffing a team to build an in-house renderer, and from that perspective he liked the idea of having two separate teams with different focuses/perspectives so that for hard problems the wider company got two attempts at coming up with good solutions instead of one.
To this day the Hyperion and RenderMan teams work pretty closely together and share a lot of learnings/tech/R&D. The focuses are pretty different between the two renderers, and that’s actually been pretty beneficial to both.
The story with Presto is both a bit different and kind of similar. The two studios are now unified in using Presto, but Disney Animation now has an in-house Presto development team that co-develops Presto with Pixar. The two dev teams focus on the needs of their respective studios but move Presto forward together.
Seems like the obvious reason for this is that Mac is now a niche for people that operate computers, where there are likely 6 people that don't for every 1 that does. We keep hearing that the next generation is "true computer" illiterate.
The second reason is likely that there are computers that are 1/3 of the price subsidized by the terrible ad-supported OS installs. (Has anyone tried to setup a MS computer lately, it's an ad-box).
You can easily turn the "ads" off though. The only true ad are the start menu ones which is a single toggle in Settings. I have much bigger issues with setup time. I just got a Windows laptop and it took (not exaggerating) 3 hours to finally get to the desktop. Multiple reboots at the POST, then taking forever to download Windows updates and get through all the setup screens. Compared to a Mac setup it's an insanely long time to just use your computer.
That is even not counting the additional Windows updates after you get to the desktop and updates from the OEM. This is also with a Microsoft account while restoring my own settings from OneDrive.
> We keep hearing that the next generation is "true computer" illiterate.
We had that development with cars. 40 years ago, it was common to fix your own car. Nowadays, we have a subscription for seat warmers. The manual tells you to visit the dealer to get your brakes checked. Makes me sad, somehow. But people have choosen this path as a collective.
People choose what to outsource and, as cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment, they go to a dealer/mechanic. Personally, I've never done a lot of personal car mechanic work.
On the other hand, I've done my own cooking more than not.
You make choices about what you do yourself and what you have others do for you.
> cars have become more complicated and require more diagnostic equipment
For the consumable stuff every car owner has to deal with, nothing has really changed in 40 years, honestly! A brake service is still done the exact same way, same with virtually all the fluid services.
I just find far more people parrot "modern cars are so complicated" today and don't even consider that in fact, it is relatively simple to change a brake pad and disc, or your own oil, perhaps an air filter, even on most brand new cars. Fluids filters and brakes are like 90% of most people's maintenance needs nowadays.
YouTube has also massively lowered the barrier to working on cars, given there are multiple easy to follow guides for just about any car service for any car model you can think of.
These are all relatively simple TO YOU. You are not everyone though. Some people lack the mobility, strength or even time to do these things. Some people just don't want to get dirty working on their car. Some people don't have the space to do these kinds of maintenance.
Not everyone needs to know how to compile their own kernel, build their own furniture or clean their laundry perfectly. Everyone has their own interests and areas of expertise they want to delve in to. Now I can screw up a brake job working on it all day and rewatching YouTube videos wondering what I missed, or I can take it to a shop and get it done in an hour for cheap. That's just me though. I spent a lot of time working on cars in my youth and I'm just tired of spending my time on it. I don't like it and I am more than willing to pay someone who does like it to do it.
> These are all relatively simple TO YOU. You are not everyone though. Some people lack the mobility, strength or even time to do these things. Some people just don't want to get dirty working on their car. Some people don't have the space to do these kinds of maintenance.
That is irrelevant to the argument he is making that things have not gotten harder in the last 40 years in regards to car maintenance that you can do at home.
His point is that the perception that car maintenance has gotten harder for the average joe does not match reality. Almost all of the things that need periodic on modern cars are more or less the same as they were in 1985.
No, I think the other side has a point. If I were doing 10 services on my car, I would have muscle memory of a lot of things. If I am doing only brakes, and maybe another thing, I do not have that muscle memory. While the work may not be harder, the familiarity is gone for a lot of people.
BTW just before Covid, or during Covid, I took a car mechanic course from the local De Anza college - no hands on, so that's why I think it was during Covid. But after 5 years and no experience, I have forgotten except the abstract concepts. Then imagine people who never had to look under the hood -- ever.
I took several car mechanic classes from De Anza college. Great instructor, and I did do some hands on stuff.
But my primary takeaway was that this is hard & dirty work, and there are numerous ways in which you can make mistakes that ruin the car and/or endanger your safety, so generally paying a professional to do it is a more sensible way.
Of course, if you enjoy doing this, or have a very old car, or more time than money, the trade-offs are different.
Which is true for a lot of things around the house. Although I got the whole house painted a bit ago because insurance was paying for it after a fire, there are some things I have experience with because I've done them a bunch of times--and often do them myself--there are others that I've never done. And may not have the right tools for and YouTube notwithstanding will probably take me a long time to do a very imperfect job.
Stuff like changing cabin air filter or your own oil takes no additional space beyond the space already occupied by the parked car. You don't even need to lift the car to change the oil in most cases unless the car designers were massochists. Sure, maybe not everyone can get down on their back anymore, but that shouldn't be an issue for able bodied people.
Doing your own oil changes is not worth the hassle when considering the risk of a spill and the difficulty of legal disposal—unless you have a fancy engine that needs frequent oil changes.
Cabin air filter and wiper fluid, sure. Headlights and taillights used to be a no-brainer, but now those are often sealed LED assemblies and difficult to access as well.
What hassle? Just put the oil pan down and there's no spill risk. Disposal is extremely easy. You can walk into an autozone and give them your used oil and they take care of it for free, you don't even need to be a customer. Most cities and towns also have facilities for oil disposal.
Again it is like 5 mins of hands on work if you are taking your time.
You're overstating how easy these tasks are for many people. Doing brake pads/rotors or changing oil requires a driveway, some tools, and (for oil) a way to collect and dispose of the old fluids. Not everyone has access to those things - for instance, people who live in an apartment complex may not have the space to work on their car.
You can change your oil wherever you parked the car. A way to collect the used oil is as easy as an old jug of milk, or the empty bottles from your new oil. Disposal involves finding an autozone or someplace similar and dropping it off for free. In terms of tools you'd need, a $5 dish from autozone to collect the oil, a 10c copper washer for your drain plug, and a socket wrench.
Sure, everything you say was true for many folks 40 years ago too though! My point is, the processes haven't really changed for the common maintenance tasks over this period, people's perception of the difficulty certainly appears to have though.
Actually, in modern times you can buy an oil extraction pump off Amazon for $100, making oil changes so much easier than they were 40 years ago! A lot of [especially European] cars have the filter accessible from the top, meaning that you can change oil in 15 minutes in any apartment parking space by doing little more than popping the hood!
I’ve done oil changes decades ago but don’t bother anymore since I don’t feel like jacking the car up but using an oil extraction tool from the top does sound intriguing. Can you replace the filter from the top or does that require a jack? Also, does the filter need to be replaced each time?
Changing a pad/disc/caliper isn’t “hard” but it’s time consuming and very messy. Most people probably don’t find spending 2 hours getting the car jacked, tires off, etc to be a good or enjoyable use of time!
I wish it took 2 hours. For me it's spend 2 hours shopping for the right part, finding it for a good price, and ordering it. Then spend an hour watching youtube videos for how to do it. Then spend 4 hours gathering the right tools, getting the car jacked, tires off, etc., then put everything away, and clean up. That's the best case. I could get the wrong part, my car looks different than the videos, I do it wrong, or break something. I recently replaced my front brakes. I maybe saved $400. I'm proud of myself. I kind of enjoyed it, but it's hard to justify.
A lot of people here are probably equally proud that they built a a DIY PC from scratch which I did many times. But just don't have an interest in doing any longer and screwed up a bunch along the way.
I also choose not to mow my lawn at this point. I'm perfectly capable of doing so but just prefer not to do so,
> it is very simple to change a brake pad and disc
I can attest that changing a brake pad is mission impossible level without the proper tools. The tools and experience are what make it look easy, for someone that has both.
Except many new cars are locked down in software, for example not allowing to release rear parking brakes without authorized service subscription, keeping the electronic keys for each VIN unique and stored in the cloud. Yes, there are workarounds on releasing the brakes manually but it is a burden.
Also similarly as with iPhones, many cars require connecting to the authorized service to change headlights and other parts since they are paired with the MCU.
I know how to work on my car but I am not able to because someone decided to lock it down.
I don't follow. Every time I drive my car I release the parking brake. On the cars with electronic brakes, you use a button rather than a lever. I'd do it the same way to service the brakes.
You typically need the piston fully retracted to replace pads, which very rarely happens just by disengaging the park brake.
If you are old enough to have changed a manual handbrake pad, you normally had to screw the piston back in before you could fit the thicker new pad with a "caliper rewind tool" even if the handbrake was off, the electronic parking brake service mode essentially does this for you, or unblocks the piston permitting a rewind tool to work.
Cars are both more complicated and way more reliable. You used to spend a Sunday changing your plugs and points. Now your car lacks points and if the plugs last less than 100000km it's a disappointment. You used to need new clutch plates on the regular, now nobody ever needs them or if they do need them the car is a total loss because good luck getting to the clutches. On my current car the closest I ever came to working on it was replacing the wiper blades.
Modern cars are also way harder to work on than in the past. You used to be able to buy a Haynes manual for every major car and could do most of the repair work if you wanted! Nowadays, not so much. Specialized tools galore, tearing apart the whole car for minor hidden things... This one is far more on the car manufacturers than consumers IMHO. I am also sad about the death of the manual transmission. Glad to have gotten one of the final years that Mini will be producing them!
They are harder to work on in the past, but people have developed the belief that they're actually impossible to work on. A huge amount of car repair is still doable by the average person.
Cars are a lot safer now. People routinely walk away from collisions that would have killed everyone in the vehicle back in 70s. So there is some gain to the trade off.
According to this, pedestrians were dropping until around 2007, which I believe was the year of the iPhone. One could posit that distracted walking has increased pedestrian fatalities since 2007 and not car size.
On one hand, yes. But also, cars are now an appliance. They rarely break, can be bought quite cheaply (if that’s what you want) and consume little time. I like this.
Except they are 2020s appliances with bells and whistles and reinventing the wheel for no reason with electronic wizzbangs and dohickeys and layers and layers of complexity. Your car in the 90s was the appliance. Simple electronic system. Reliable simple ICE engine. Simple gearbox. Easy to work on which means even if you don't work on your own car it helps you, because labor takes less time and therefore repair shop bills are lower. Parts back then were widely shared across a manufacturers lineup so readily available and relatively cheap. 4 cylinder economy car was practically a commodity back then.
> We keep hearing that the next generation is "true computer" illiterate.
I 'member when "personal" computers were going to be a kind of capital-equipment made available to the masses, creating new levels of autonomy and personal control over our own lives, working for our goals and interests... Whoops.
It also helps that they are moving phone financing off their balance sheet and onto AT&T’s, where people who don’t know anything think AT&T is giving away iPhone 17s right now, when of course, actually, Apple is.
The better question is, who do you know pays full price up front for an iPhone with no discounts? Only people who destroy or lose their current iPhone? The parents of teenagers giving the teenager the old phone and replacing theirs?
I pay full price, and use cheap MVNOs for phone service. Ends up being much cheaper and no mobile carrier shenanigans polluting my phones, sim lock, etc.
I pay full price up front. Just bought an iPhone 17 pro and sold the 16 pro on Swappa. I've never found a trade-in deal that was better than selling a phone myself, and the 1 or 2 times I've tried it, I've ended up frustrated by having a locked phone, and paid it off early anyway.
The big carriers hide the phone in the price but you're still paying it. I just use US Mobile unlimited plans for $35/mo, plus it gives me free international service which was the real advantage for me. Paying 1/3 the annual service plan and $0/day int'l roaming instead of $15/day.
There's also the fact that it's tough to share a smartphone like you can a computer. I suspect Apple hasn't made user switching a thing on iOS for this reason.
My wife has been without a desktop or laptop for more than a decade. Her primary computing devices are her phone and iPad.
For doing tasks like online banking or booking plane tickets, I find the mobile experience frustrating and therefore do it on my laptop. She finds the laptop clunky and finds mobile much easier.
"Netflix is also looking at making its ad tier more attractive to advertisers, including by bolstering its sales teams and ad operations to “meet brands where they need us and how they need us.”
“We’re focused on the long-term revenue potential here,” said (Co-Ceo) Peters. “We’re very optimistic about it. It’s a huge opportunity."
Seems about what everyone was predicting, and inline with making the watching experience worse. It's surprising they added subscribers. I wonder how many were due to deals with Phone providers etc.
Peacock, Amazon Freemium, etc, have proven that people are ok with eyeballs-on-ads as a payment method. If Netflix opens a free/cheaper tier, it won't make it "worse" for existing paid viewers, it'll just make the service more accessible.
We'll have to see if they end up putting ads in the existing paid service tiers.
Amazon already did, while simultaneously introducing a new tier for $3 more per month. Next, expect ad-supported plans to show progressively more ads, and the cost of others' ad-free plans to rise.
Amazon is also charging less than half of what Netflix does, for 4k, and is still the cheapest of all the streaming services. I naively assume they're feeling the pressure more than Netflix does.
Although there’s a few great series and movies in the catalog, even at half the price it’s not great value. I’d be very surprised if more than 5% of its subscribers only subscribe to Amazon Video, vs. getting it as a freebie with Amazon Prime.
Peacock lost billions of dollars in 2023. Amazon Prime Video is a bit weird because amazon can absorb its giant losses, and prior to this last quarter they were absolutely dumping money into productions that didn't make sense, chasing game of thrones by burning money. Netflix, meanwhile was profitable.
Why is the profitable company chasing the business practices of the companies that are burning billions of dollars per year?
> Why is the profitable company chasing the business practices of the companies that are burning billions of dollars per year?
Peacock was an example of how a large group of people prefer ads to paying, which means it wasn't worse for them. This was in the context of my comment of Netflix potentially adding a "free" ad supported tier, which could make the content available to those people who couldn't/wouldn't pay.
But, as you point out, them not being profitable suggests that "free" with ads isn't sustainable, meaning a Netflix "free" tier probably wouldn't work either, assuming they were similar to the 15 minutes/hour of ads that Peacock has.
Prime literally just started pushing ads to existing customers and charging $3/month extra for no ads. That’s literally making it worse for existing paid viewers. I have no reason to think Netflix would do otherwise. They all end up doing the same crap the second one of them pulls it off, historically…
Interesting, they just gobbled up the Mint Mobile MVNO for something like 1.35B which was already using their network and of course there's the Sprint for 26B and now are cutting jobs to save half that.
I wonder how much of this is the articles cable company wireless deals, and more just consolidation of jobs around the new megaco they've created.
Isn't this the cycle of cell companies now? They have customer service go to shit, then an MVNO pops up with low prices and good service using their network, and then they got bought, and then it goes to shit and the cycle continues?
We don't actually know if this behavior is rewarded or not.
Possibly they succeed despite this behavior - some other part of the company is carrying the weight.
I have Google Fi (on the tmobile network) and I will say, my cell phone plan does work and is worth what I pay for it. So there's definitely some value generation via that.
Thank you. This will be great to work through with my kids - They're really into the Captain Underpants and Dogman which feature a lot of characters and I'm building their creations into video games with Godot.
Seems like an opportunity to do a reprint? I don't love printing 240 pages on a home printer... but maybe that's the only option.
What's the copyright situation if I tried to reprint this for personal use through an on-demand printer, would they accept it?
