4 ms·

I love the idea, because there's something to almost ideal to me about the 3.5" floppy disk format. I wish I had some reason to use them today, and so I really

by enneff 7y ago

I love the idea, because there's something to almost ideal to me about the 3.5" floppy disk format. I wish I had some reason to use them today, and so I really want this to work. However the audio quality is just terrible; it may be intelligible, but it is unlistenable IMO.

ajroach42 7y ago
Oh for sure. It's garbage. But opus still sounds pretty good until you get down to around 10kbps (this, iirc, is 6 or 7.)
- baroffoos 7y ago
  If you really wanted to crunch the size you could store the podcast as a text file and run it through text to speech when you want to listen to it.
  - mgoetzke 7y ago
    that might be the next AI level of compression of just about everything. Very lossy, but very small.
  - netsharc 7y ago
    It would be.. spooky. Just like the lady who voiced Siri just had to record sounds (letters and combinations of letters) that can be combined for text-to-speech, one could do that for podcasters... But then it means you can make your podcaster say anything you want.
    - Rhinobird 7y ago
      like an audio PDF or something.
  - fsiefken 7y ago
    Combined with a good text compressor you could get > 100 hours of speech on it. http://www.mattmahoney.net/dc/text.html http://www.mattmahoney.net/dc/text.html
Causality1 7y ago
3.5mm floppies combined a lot of factors that appealed to me. They were cheap enough you could give one to someone without wanting it back, they were contained entirely within the computer so no danger of breaking it off if you leave it in there too long. Unlike CDs they were rewritable and unlike CDRWs they worked properly no matter what PC I was writing or reading from. Not to mention the thoroughly satisfying "chunk" sound when popped into a drive. Network file transfers will never have that "shove the data right into the computer, bam!" feeling.
- benj111 7y ago
  "3.5mm" Careful with your units there. http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Causality1 7y ago
    Drat. Uh, I was referencing it by, uh, its thickness dimension. Yeah, that's what I was doing, yes sir.
    - benj111 7y ago
      Ah yes, I forgot it was a Euro American joint venture, thus measurements are equally split between metric and imperial. Fun fact, the spring rate for the slidy thing (technical term) is measured in lb m/in cm!
- enneff 7y ago
  There was also the tactile feeling of flipping through a stack of floppies looking for one specific disk. Now that everything is so high capacity, you almost never have to physically search for data. Of course the modern way is superior in almost every way, except it was a kind of wonderful sensation holding a disk box full of your stuff.

by enneff 7y ago

ajroach42 7y ago

Oh for sure. It's garbage. But opus still sounds pretty good until you get down to around 10kbps (this, iirc, is 6 or 7.)

baroffoos 7y ago
If you really wanted to crunch the size you could store the podcast as a text file and run it through text to speech when you want to listen to it.
- mgoetzke 7y ago
  that might be the next AI level of compression of just about everything. Very lossy, but very small.
- netsharc 7y ago
  It would be.. spooky. Just like the lady who voiced Siri just had to record sounds (letters and combinations of letters) that can be combined for text-to-speech, one could do that for podcasters... But then it means you can make your podcaster say anything you want.
  - Rhinobird 7y ago
    like an audio PDF or something.
- fsiefken 7y ago
  Combined with a good text compressor you could get > 100 hours of speech on it. http://www.mattmahoney.net/dc/text.html http://www.mattmahoney.net/dc/text.html

Causality1 7y ago

3.5mm floppies combined a lot of factors that appealed to me. They were cheap enough you could give one to someone without wanting it back, they were contained entirely within the computer so no danger of breaking it off if you leave it in there too long. Unlike CDs they were rewritable and unlike CDRWs they worked properly no matter what PC I was writing or reading from. Not to mention the thoroughly satisfying "chunk" sound when popped into a drive. Network file transfers will never have that "shove the data right into the computer, bam!" feeling.

benj111 7y ago
"3.5mm" Careful with your units there. http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Causality1 7y ago
  Drat. Uh, I was referencing it by, uh, its thickness dimension. Yeah, that's what I was doing, yes sir.
  - benj111 7y ago
    Ah yes, I forgot it was a Euro American joint venture, thus measurements are equally split between metric and imperial. Fun fact, the spring rate for the slidy thing (technical term) is measured in lb m/in cm!
enneff 7y ago
There was also the tactile feeling of flipping through a stack of floppies looking for one specific disk. Now that everything is so high capacity, you almost never have to physically search for data. Of course the modern way is superior in almost every way, except it was a kind of wonderful sensation holding a disk box full of your stuff.