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> You tell a lambda citizen that the iPod has 2GB of storage capcity, it doesn't "speak" to him. I don't really agree with this 'us vs. them' thinking. I'm a t

by Osmium 11y ago

> You tell a lambda citizen that the iPod has 2GB of storage capcity, it doesn't "speak" to him. I don't really agree with this 'us vs. them' thinking. I'm a technical person, but 2GB doesn't really mean much to me. What bitrate are my songs encoded at on average? Do I use VBR? What bitrates can I get away with? etc. I'd have to do a rough sum in my head, and the only answer I'd get is 'in the 1000s' anyway, so it doesn't give me any extra information. The fact is, even for technical people, approximations and hand waving are great as starting points. They set expectations. I feel like anything more complicated than that (hard numbers) only have the potential to be misleading anyway, because they let us think we have more information than we actually do. It's only when you actually start working things out that those numbers (so how many GW does a city need? a typical house? what's the variance in these numbers?) become more relevant, but that's not the sort of thing you can do in your head anyway.

Retric 11y ago
The fact is, even for technical people, approximations and hand waving are great as starting points. They set expectations. Good approximations do this. If you say a proposed wind farm is going to produce enough energy to power 100,000 homes that means something even if I don't know how much energy the average home uses you can still think ~small city worth of power. You can also say electric bill is ~100$ / month so that's 120million / year worth of electricity even if your units are off it's going to be in the right ballpark. However, if you say it's enough to power 1,000,000 light bulbs that's both ambiguous and not really useful. Because you both wonder if it's 60w or 100w, is that 24/7 or a few hours a day, and you probably don't really know how many light bulbs are in your house or how much energy they use. (TV's and other devices are even more ambiguous.) So, you can't get how much energy that is directly or indirectly. PS: I still want hard numbers, somewhere even if there not a major part of the presentation.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I don't know, 2GB seems much clearer than "1000 songs" to me. All the questions you ask are even more applicable to the "1000 songs" figure, but on top of that you also suspect that this amount was computed by marketing for some average-lenght low-quality music. But then again, I'm a technical person, I have an overall feel of how much space my data takes, so I can do a quick estimate in my head. Also, I believe that all this marketing for "technically clueless" tend to make them even more clueless. In this case, it promotes understanding of "mp3 player" as "a box to play music" instead of what it really is - a portable storage device that can also play music files. Yes, the less clueless people actually used their mp3 players to move files around, at least before pendrives were as disposable as ballpens.
- Osmium 11y ago
  > Also, I believe that all this marketing for "technically clueless" tend to make them even more clueless. In this case, it promotes understanding of "mp3 player" as "a box to play music" instead of what it really is I think that's a really interesting point. What is an MP3 player really? There are probably good arguments to be made for more abstraction ("box to play music") or less abstraction ("portable storage device"). I'd err towards more abstraction in the long run, because that's the only way technology can progress to the truly magical stuff (eventually no one will be able to understand a piece of technology in its entirety, we're already almost there, so why run from abstraction?). > I don't know, 2GB seems much clearer than "1000 songs" to me. This is what I meant by "[hard numbers] let us think we have more information than we actually do." Perhaps in this particular instance that's not the case, but I think that stating a precise number might make us feel more knowledgable (or comfortable), without actually adding much actual information, e.g. see people who are focused on what GHz their phone has, or whatever. I agree that these numbers should be available though, but I don't think marketers (or presenters) are being dishonest or misleading for leaving them out; I think they're often actually helping.

by Osmium 11y ago

Retric 11y ago

The fact is, even for technical people, approximations and hand waving are great as starting points. They set expectations. Good approximations do this. If you say a proposed wind farm is going to produce enough energy to power 100,000 homes that means something even if I don't know how much energy the average home uses you can still think ~small city worth of power. You can also say electric bill is ~100$ / month so that's 120million / year worth of electricity even if your units are off it's going to be in the right ballpark. However, if you say it's enough to power 1,000,000 light bulbs that's both ambiguous and not really useful. Because you both wonder if it's 60w or 100w, is that 24/7 or a few hours a day, and you probably don't really know how many light bulbs are in your house or how much energy they use. (TV's and other devices are even more ambiguous.) So, you can't get how much energy that is directly or indirectly. PS: I still want hard numbers, somewhere even if there not a major part of the presentation.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

I don't know, 2GB seems much clearer than "1000 songs" to me. All the questions you ask are even more applicable to the "1000 songs" figure, but on top of that you also suspect that this amount was computed by marketing for some average-lenght low-quality music. But then again, I'm a technical person, I have an overall feel of how much space my data takes, so I can do a quick estimate in my head. Also, I believe that all this marketing for "technically clueless" tend to make them even more clueless. In this case, it promotes understanding of "mp3 player" as "a box to play music" instead of what it really is - a portable storage device that can also play music files. Yes, the less clueless people actually used their mp3 players to move files around, at least before pendrives were as disposable as ballpens.

Osmium 11y ago
> Also, I believe that all this marketing for "technically clueless" tend to make them even more clueless. In this case, it promotes understanding of "mp3 player" as "a box to play music" instead of what it really is I think that's a really interesting point. What is an MP3 player really? There are probably good arguments to be made for more abstraction ("box to play music") or less abstraction ("portable storage device"). I'd err towards more abstraction in the long run, because that's the only way technology can progress to the truly magical stuff (eventually no one will be able to understand a piece of technology in its entirety, we're already almost there, so why run from abstraction?). > I don't know, 2GB seems much clearer than "1000 songs" to me. This is what I meant by "[hard numbers] let us think we have more information than we actually do." Perhaps in this particular instance that's not the case, but I think that stating a precise number might make us feel more knowledgable (or comfortable), without actually adding much actual information, e.g. see people who are focused on what GHz their phone has, or whatever. I agree that these numbers should be available though, but I don't think marketers (or presenters) are being dishonest or misleading for leaving them out; I think they're often actually helping.