I don’t know about movies, but have you seen their highly informative and helpful comments on tech and free software? Amazing stuff, could probably make a career out of it.

Yeah, sorry, that part I didn’t fact check myself so I didn’t even want to mention it. Like I said, many possible reasons.

I think I know what you’re talking about, and I think you might have misunderstood a few things. I’ll explain my point and I’d appreciate it if you could confirm later whether it helped, or if I’m the one who misunderstood you.

“Saving as…” is, usually, just for setting the name of the file. The full filename, extension included. The extension is just another part of the name. It doesn’t define what rules the file’s contents actually follow. They’re for other purposes, such as helping your operating system know which software to use when opening each file. For example:

User double clicks a .pdf System: Oh, I should try opening this in Adobe Acrobat.

But that doesn’t mean the file is actually a PDF. You can change the extension of any file, and it won’t automatically be converted to that extension (unless a specific feature has been added to make that implicit conversion). You could give an executable a .pdf extension and your system might then try opening it in Acrobat. Of course, it won’t work—there’s no way the system could have automatically made that conversion for you.

So you might wonder, why does your (fake) PNG—which is really just a webp with an incorrect extension—still work just fine? You can open it, view it, send it. What’s the trick?

Thing is, the software that actually deals with those files doesn’t even need to care about the extension, it’s a lot smarter than that. These programs will use things like magic bytes to figure out what the file they’re handling really is and deal with it appropriately.

So in this scenario, the user could save a webp file as PNG.

funny cat.png (still a webp!)

Then they might double click to open it.

System: How do I open a .png again?

• .webp -> try the image viewer
• .jpeg -> try the image viewer
• .png -> try the image viewer (there it is)

And finally, the image viewer would correctly identify it as a webp image and display it normally.

Image viewer: reading magic bytes… Image viewer: yeah, that’s a webp alright

The user might then assume that, since everything works as expected, they properly converted their webp to a PNG. In reality, it’s all thanks to these programs, built upon decades of helping users just make things work. Same with Discord, Paint.NET, etc. Any decent software will handle files it’s meant to handle, even if they aren’t properly labeled.

If you were to check the file contents though, using a tool like file, czkawka to find incorrect extensions, or even just checking image properties, it should still be identified as a webp.

I didn’t try it myself as you said because, to my understanding of files and software, doing so made no sense. But again, do tell if I got something wrong or misinterpreted your comment.

Hey, thanks for the input. I’d like to read more about this, but I can’t seem to find anything related online. Anything else you could share?

Just checking, you sure you’re not confusing fallback-to-another-format when the browser doesn’t support webp? Because that’s a bit of separate issue, and not a terribly relevant one since all major browsers have supported webp for a while now.

Sorry, is this comment meant in jest? If not, could you explain what exactly you mean by “no need for a converter?”

I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. No actual file data conversion is happening when you do that unless you’re using additional tools e.g. browser extensions.

Semi-related, I’m still salty about Google’s rejection of JPEG XL. I can’t help but remember this when webp discussion crops up, since Google were the ones who created it.

I still hold hope for JPEG XL and that Google will cave at some point.

Honestly, that strategy feels like the most sensible one, since the real world often does not (or can not afford to) care to wait for v1.0.0 before using software. It’s no wonder so many programming ecosystems have adopted it.

I find it a bit of a shame it’s not part of the semver specification itself, which only states:

4. (paraphrased) do whatever you want haha

My point is, I don’t think that’s “your bad.” It’s just how it is, and the best there currently is. Unless you think there’s something that could’ve been done better, in which case I’m curious as to what, if you’re willing to share.

I will attempt an oddly serious answer, unlike my previous comment, since I feel this deserves one.

Sort of, and technically correct. Both the suicidal and the oil baron have no reason to care what happens after they’re dead. But I don’t know if that’s relevant here.

Powerful people ruining the world do so because of incentives and… because they can. The only thing that will stop them and those that come after is meaningful societal change. Convincing people to participate in bringing about this change is important too, make no mistake, but it’s because of what they can achieve united. It’s voting, protesting, and building a world where the powerful can’t screw over the world and everyone in it.

Hoping a change in culture alone will save the world is useless, because the rich and powerful will not follow that new culture. There’s no trickle-up morals, and telling suicidal people they should be mindful of how they die (if serious) is barking up the wrong tree. It won’t stop the oil baron from continuing to pollute more than everyone in this thread combined, nor will it make a meaningful difference even should the person follow your advice, because it’s a drop in the bucket—and maybe the last one they’ll ever make.

Trying to put it shortly, my point is that mentality is only the start. The world is broken (e.g. climate change is a thing), not just because of mentality, but because those high above do all in their power to stay there and shape the world in ways that suit them. Changing people’s mentality is good, but is “use hydrogen instead of helium” really the last thing a suicidal person should have to hear from you?

Of course, this is a meme community in the end, so apologies if this comment was unnecessary because no one is seriously saying that. But anyone who thinks so should also be able to read my previous comment in its intended humor as well.

Respectfully, the dead need not care about loss of non-renewable resources.

Would replacing “shitty” with “crappy” make it better? I didn’t take telling it to a five year old literally and assumed uncle’s was for (even) edgier jokes. I don’t mind moving the post at all, though.

Edit: no internet for a while, will leave post up for now and leave it to moderators’ discretion. Will check back later and remove if that’s what seems best