Hacker News: olivertaylor

New comment by olivertaylor in "Pixel fucked: Inside Hollywood's VFX crisis"

olivertaylor — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:44:36 +0000

Thanks!

New comment by olivertaylor in "Pixel fucked: Inside Hollywood's VFX crisis"

olivertaylor — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:55:43 +0000

Oh right, of course. I agree. But as with any technology, new possibilities emerge. Perhaps someone will come up with a new paradigm.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Pixel fucked: Inside Hollywood's VFX crisis"

olivertaylor — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:18:26 +0000

You’re right about the productivity. And many movie studios already own VFX studios. Netflix has Scanline, Disney has ILM, etc. But it is not super common.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Pixel fucked: Inside Hollywood's VFX crisis"

olivertaylor — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:15:50 +0000

There are a lot of factors, but you’re not wrong.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Pixel fucked: Inside Hollywood's VFX crisis"

olivertaylor — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:10:06 +0000

Exactly. Is that a basic economic principle? I think it’s called the efficiency paradox.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Pixel fucked: Inside Hollywood's VFX crisis"

olivertaylor — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 15:33:42 +0000

Not really. I’ve never worked for a studio that treats people like that, and wouldn’t. And I’ve been in a unique position to see how these situations unfold. It is very complex, very fluid, and difficult to manage. I think the bottom line is just that it is too difficult to do correctly for most studios (people).

However, you are correct in that people in my position are often at fault - but executive leadership ALWAYS signs off.

The labor shortage situation has changed a lot since then but it was never a wages problem. I knew people at studios offering double their standard rate who still couldn’t find enough qualified people.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Plain text journaling in Vim"

olivertaylor — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 19:59:20 +0000

I arrived at exactly the same conclusion, but I use Notes for my todo list (I like mixing checklists and notes in one document) and leaving reminders for… you know, reminders.

I honestly enjoy it less than some of the more complex plain text systems I’ve used/built in the past but it has the advantage of actually being practical for me.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Attention, Hollywood: De-Aging Isn’t Working, So Please Stop Using It"

olivertaylor — Mon, 22 May 2023 16:15:20 +0000

Remember S1m0ne? https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/

New comment by olivertaylor in "Attention, Hollywood: De-Aging Isn’t Working, So Please Stop Using It"

olivertaylor — Sat, 20 May 2023 20:09:54 +0000

Or 20 years from now… “would you like 45 year old Tom Cruise in your movie? No problem, just pay his estate $20M.”

Also, talent agencies have been paying for 3d scans of their top talent for years, just to have banked in case anyone should need it. I would guess that all the A list actors plan on getting scanned every 5 years so they can be in a movie at any age.

New comment by olivertaylor in "Vore: A new RSS feed reader"

olivertaylor — Tue, 16 May 2023 21:05:03 +0000

Like this? https://github.com/jamesroutley/news.routley.io

New comment by olivertaylor in "Use GNU Emacs"

olivertaylor — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 19:28:30 +0000

You can also do this with the system's built-in mail program. I set this up for doing bulk emails a while ago and it has proved very useful and versatile.

    (defun compose-mail-macos (&optional to subject body)
      "Compose a message using macOS's default mail program."
      (interactive)
      (start-process "Open Mail Message" nil "open"
                     (concat "mailto:"
                             (when to to) "?"
                             (when subject (concat "&subject=" (url-hexify-string subject)))
                             (when body (concat "&body=" (url-hexify-string body))))))
    
    (defun compose-mail-macos-multiple (list subject body)
      "ADDRESSES should be a list of email addresses in the form of:
    (setq mail-list '(\"Mail 1 \"
                      \"Mail 2 \"
                      \"Mail 3 \"))"
      (while list
        (let ((to (car list)))
          (compose-mail-macos to subject body)
          (setq list (cdr list)))))

New comment by olivertaylor in "Ask HN: macOS apps/utils you can’t live without?"

olivertaylor — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:44:23 +0000

Never heard of contexts before, this app is awesome. So many great features. I even like having the shelf to the side, feels like a more Mac-like Stage Manager or something. Thanks!

New comment by olivertaylor in "Ask HN: What features should “the perfect personal CRM” have?"

olivertaylor — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 03:40:39 +0000

I just use an Airtable database with a bunch of customization. It’s great.

New comment by olivertaylor in "AI will dominate the animation industry in less than 5 years"

olivertaylor — Mon, 28 Nov 2022 03:33:23 +0000

I wonder about this. The global total of agricultural workers is lower than it ever was, even if the total output is higher than it’s ever been.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-people-employed...

New comment by olivertaylor in "Ask HN: How do you read articles and newsletters?"

olivertaylor — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:14:47 +0000

I have all my newsletters delivered to address+news@domain.com and filter them into a folder. You could create one folder as a newsletter “inbox” and one as an “archive”.

New comment by olivertaylor in "AI will dominate the animation industry in less than 5 years"

olivertaylor — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 18:00:48 +0000

In my view the skill of the artist is to transfer an idea into the medium they work with, and if they work in a collaborative format that’s 50% of the job. It takes an enormous amount of skill to master the medium, and some mediums are easier than others. But the quality of the ideas they have matters a great deal. As does their ability to collaborate effectively.

New comment by olivertaylor in "AI will dominate the animation industry in less than 5 years"

olivertaylor — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 17:56:23 +0000

True, but there are way more typesetters employed today than in the 1930s, and what they are able to do with their skills has changed a lot. I guess I’m just arguing that animation will follow the same path.

New comment by olivertaylor in "AI will dominate the animation industry in less than 5 years"

olivertaylor — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 17:45:56 +0000

Yeah, but the total amount of money earned in movies or TV has only gone up. As has the total number of jobs in the industry.

New comment by olivertaylor in "AI will dominate the animation industry in less than 5 years"

olivertaylor — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 17:09:58 +0000

As it has been with every technology. Sure, the dynamics and specifics change dramatically, and maybe there are less people doing the work, but the idea that those workers are somehow not needed doesn’t make sense.

New comment by olivertaylor in "AI will dominate the animation industry in less than 5 years"

olivertaylor — Sun, 27 Nov 2022 17:05:57 +0000

> prompting an AI requires much less skill than animating it yourself

s/much less skill/different stills/

> Do you think "AI prompters" will earn the same amount as animators?

I do, because animation is not inherently valuable. The value they are paid for is solving a problem, the same problem AI prompters will solve. It is totally valid to argue that AI will reduce the total amount of animators, I think that will happen.